


Strange Relationship

by yukiscorpio



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiscorpio/pseuds/yukiscorpio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before entering university and following the route that society expected of its children, Niou turned his back to everyone he knew and walked out. Seven years later, he suddenly returned. But what did he want?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on LJ in Oct 2004 - Jan 2005. This is loosely related to [Wonderland](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1173699), which should be read first.
> 
> This story is about decisions. This is about people making choices, sometimes making up reasons to justify what they've chosen as they go along. This is about people who are not perfect and are often selfish, who think only about themselves at the end of the day; people who cannot understand each other with just one look of their eyes; people who make mistakes; people who try to understand; people who have different standards and expectations for themselves than they have for others.
> 
> In this story everyone is good, and they are all bad. They all have their reasons and excuses for what they've done and they feel comfortable with their justifications, without realising (or refusing to acknowledge) that some of them are ridiculous. At first it may seem that the characters are very far from reality but, I hope, when you take a step back and look around, you'll draw a different conclusion.

Side Y

Sometimes Yagyuu wondered, if he had the chance to read Niou's response to the university entrance survey, what would he have seen?

Junior high, senior high, university, career. It was a pretty straight path that everyone in Rikkai was expected to follow and everyone Yagyuu knew from the school walked that path, apart from Niou. Niou walked a different path.

To be precise, Niou walked out.

It wasn't just out of the system, it was out of the country, out of everyone's lives, and no one had seen it coming.

But when they gathered together and talked about it - and they only ever talked about it once - nearly all of them confessed to not being able to imagine Niou doing higher education. That was everyone apart from Yagyuu and Yanagi. So it might be just as well that Niou chose his own way, packed his bags and left before university entrance exams began. Nobody noticed he was gone until Jackal arranged a meet-up the night before their results were due to be released and found out from Niou's family that their fellow classmate and teammate had left.

Apparently Niou didn't leave a note, but his brother said that some items in the room were gone so he could tell that Niou had left the house, probably for good.

At first Yagyuu expected a phonecall. Niou knew how to get to his house but Yagyuu doubted his friend would know the actual address to send a postcard to. But after a few weeks Yagyuu settled with the fact that perhaps Niou was really cutting ties and starting afresh somewhere.

Yagyuu chose to study physics in university, graduating with a first class honour. If anybody asked he would say it was a mix of luck and good genes from his parents, but in truth life without someone constantly teasing him, taunting him, making him (nearly) smile, making him (almost) frown, generally distracting him made many things a lot more straightforward than they had been for Yagyuu when Niou was around. It was a strange feeling, like a small, dull headache he had got used to had suddenly disappeared and he was left with a mind that was crystal clear. Too clear.

It would be unfair to compare Niou to a headache, but Yagyuu refused to spend more time to come up with a better metaphor.

He kept in touch with some of his Rikkai classmates, and all of the old tennis team. Yanagi ran a website where they updated themselves on what each other was doing. It was through the website that most of Yagyuu's friends found out he made a (very decent, but he didn't add that part) living doing particle physics, and Yagyuu learned that Sanada had joined the fire services, Jackal was moving out of Japan with his family and Kirihara, the one who struggled so badly with English, found himself an American girlfriend. Life was full of surprises.

Once Yagyuu logged on and there was a message from Yanagi waiting for him. Yanagi had sent Niou an e-mail long ago with login details for the website, and Niou had recently logged on. Tracing the IP address it appeared that Niou was in Chile at the time.

Yagyuu left a message in Niou's account: _Niou?_

After clicking "send" he thought he should have said a bit more so that Niou would actually have something to reply to, but he didn't want to follow it up with another message. Niou never responded and Yagyuu couldn't tell if his message was ever read or if it just sat in cyberspace. Yanagi would probably know but he didn't want to ask.

Sometimes it felt as though Niou only ever existed as part of his imagination because there was no proof that there ever was a person called Niou Masaharu, apart from a picture of the Rikkai tennis team in one of his photo albums. It made him wonder why he never took pictures of Niou.

Apart from seeing Yukimura at the coffee house every week, Yagyuu hardly met with his friends. The first time in five years since university that he saw Sanada was when a post on the class website said that Sanada had become critically injured in a fire.

Sanada fell when a blaze took out the stairs he was on as he tried to rescue a young boy. The boy, who was in his arms, was safe. Sanada, after surgeries to amputate a leg and remove the blood clot in his head, remained unconscious. Scenes of Sanada hitting Kirihara back in their school days came flooding back to Yagyuu's mind as he read the paper and saw that the boy bore a striking resemblance to Kirihara. But he didn't want to think about what it might mean, if anything at all.

Yagyuu picked a Saturday to visit his former vice-captain and ran into Yukimura and Kirihara.

"When I had GBS and Sanada took care of me, I wished I can pay him back one day." Yukimura had whispered, wiping Sanada's forehead with a damp towel, his gesture so gentle it could have been a caress. "But not like this." The man's voice cracked. "Not like this."

Yagyuu and Kirihara didn't know what to say.

Yagyuu thought about Niou, the boy who took care of him in his own way, who did everything to steer him away from the normal path, to save him from being driven insane by sanity.

Several days later Yagyuu visited again and found a bottle of _Lucozade Sport_ sitting next to a card on the windowsill. Under the printed message "Get well soon" were two simple kanjis: _Niou_. Yukimura said the drink and the card came in a package sent from India.

A life sign. For the briefest moment Yagyuu contemplated taking the bottle away and replacing it with an identical one from the supermarket. Then he frowned at himself for ever having such a pointless thought.

Sanada woke up the day after that, and life gradually returned to normal. A beautiful woman became Yagyuu's girlfriend and after two years, he proposed to her.

Seven years after Niou left his life, Yagyuu thought he should learn to enjoy normality.

A month after the engagement, his little sister called and said there was mail for him at his family home. Yagyuu went back to pick up a card: "You've been invited", signed _Niou_.

Remembering what day it was, Yagyuu turned around and left the house.

 

It was frightening, the changes that could happen in seven years' time. Yagyuu recalled seeing works in the area back in high school, but to come back and find a four-lane carriageway where a playground and residential houses once were was still a shock.

He found a footbridge that crossed the road and waited up there. Niou turned up half an hour later, but not late since he didn't specify a time.

"You know, I think I'm addicted to this damned drink Sanada used to make us all drink at practice." Niou dropped a backpack by his feet and leaned forward, putting his weight on the guardrail and dangling his arms over it, his fingers holding a bottle of _Lucozade Sport_. Sharp eyes took a glance at the man beside him.

"Sanada was rather amused that you sent him a bottle."

"Really. Did he smile?"

"He did, according to Yukimura."

Niou snorted. He was still the same. The voice, the looks. Yagyuu suddenly felt as though he had went back in time to seven, ten years ago.

"Happy birthday, Niou."

A smirk. "I can't believe you actually remember."

"I can't believe you know my old home's address." Yagyuu shrugged.

A pause. "You've moved out? Like those bachelors?"

"I've got engaged. Did you check the class website?"

"Yeah." Niou upended his blue-coloured drink. "That's excellent. Fucking excellent."

Yagyuu realised he couldn't tell if that was Niou's way of congratulating him or if he was being sarcastic.

They both turned when they heard the sounds of hard-pushed engines. Yagyuu looked down and saw two racing streetcars coming towards them, so fast they were almost a blur as they passed under the footbridge. There couldn't have been any booms, the bridge couldn't have vibrated, but Yagyuu's heart skipped a beat and his hands unconsciously clutched the guardrail harder.

The reaction didn't escape Niou, who sneered and pushed himself off the rail, leaving his empty drink bottle balancing precariously on it. "Let's go."

Yagyuu didn't ask, but his question was obvious.

Niou smirked - he never smiled, only smirked. "I'm crashing at your place."

Yagyuu hadn't thought about it, but somehow this didn't come as a surprise. "You aren't going home?"

"Unless you're living with your fiancée?" Niou swung the backpack onto his shoulders. He actually looked a bit tired. Worn out, even. "Let's go."

 

Niou was the same as always. The same attitude, the same looks (even though the black hair made Yagyuu pause), the same selective hearing. He ignored every question Yagyuu asked, rewarding the man with only one answer for his effort: because. By the end of their short journey home Yagyuu knew there was no point in asking Niou again why he was here, or why he left in the first place. Niou would give the answer when and if he wanted to.

And the man didn't ask if he could use the shower, only sweeping Yagyuu's modern apartment once with his eyes before moving towards the bathroom. Quite soon the sound of the shower followed. Still very much what Niou used to be like. But still, Yagyuu did notice Niou had left his backpack outside the door. Dirt and dried mud caked on the heavy-duty nylon, definitely something Yagyuu wouldn't like to have in his home. Niou did have the mind to think about him by leaving it outside.

By the time Niou emerged from the shower wearing just a pair of track pants, the usually fluffed-up hair weighed down by water, Yagyuu had moved the backpack inside and put it on some newspaper, got the kettle going (even though he didn't think Niou would fancy any tea or coffee) and was beginning to wonder where Niou was going to sleep, the sofa or the bed.

"How about neither?" Niou drawled, speaking as though he read the other's thoughts and eyeing him in what seemed like an amused manner. "How about," Then suddenly the atmosphere changed. That smirk took on a hard, serious edge. "I fall asleep inside you?"

Before Yagyuu could process the words he felt himself being shoved, and his back hit a concrete wall. His head fell back but Niou's hand cushioned the impact.

It was when Niou pressed himself against him that Yagyuu realised his old teammate had changed. Niou was no longer a scrawny kid, but a strong man with broad shoulders, hard muscles and rough, dark skin which probably said a lot about the type of life Niou had in the past seven years. Even though Yagyuu stood a good three inches taller, he felt comparatively small.

"Niou!" The hand behind his head gripped a handful of brown hair, pushing hard to force the face down. He shivered when Niou's nose touched his briefly. He could smell his own toothpaste, shower gel, aftershave, mixed with what he learned years ago was Niou's scent.

"Let's cut the talking." Niou's free hand plucked the glasses from Yagyuu's face and tossed them aside carelessly. Then the strong arm wound itself around Yagyuu's waist, holding the man in place. "This is my party."

A harder push, an upward tilt of chin and their lips met. Instinctively Yagyuu pushed at the man holding him, but somehow, somewhere in his mind, he knew it wouldn't work. This was Niou. Niou always had his way. They were so close to doing this years ago and Niou was pressed up against him, scent and touch and heat from a body he could not refuse.

The kiss was rough, raw, a battle rather than a dance of lips and tongues. Niou's hands worked deftly on Yagyuu's clothes, pushing them askew to search for warm skin before he growled and impatiently undid each button that held the shirt together. Yagyuu didn't quite know where to put his arms, so he rested them on his partner's shoulders and threw his head back when rough hands and slick tongue found skin previously hidden by the shirt. Teeth scraped his nipple and Yagyuu groaned, gripping Niou's shoulders with his fingers, digging trimmed nails into tanned skin.

Yagyuu's belt joined his glasses, the silver buckle landing on the floor with a clang. Niou's lips were on his again, fierce and demanding as a hand slipped inside opened pants and underwear to grasp the rapidly hardening flesh underneath. Niou could be smirking into the kiss but Yagyuu couldn't tell, he was too busy tugging at the drawstring on Niou's track pants. Not an easy task whilst trying to keep as much bodily contact as possible and Niou was stroking him with calloused hands. Not that he knew what he was doing. Niou obviously knew though, the meaning of "inside you" suddenly becoming so blatant that a shiver ran down Yagyuu's spine. He didn't have any experience on this side, they never did it during high school...

Alarm bells began to ring in Yagyuu's mind. Strangely they reminded him of a science lesson in junior high, when the teacher demonstrated that air was necessary in the transmission of sound. There was a bell in a sealed jar, air was sucked out from it and even though he saw the bell's arm moving, no sound could be heard. Then the teacher released air back into the jar and he heard this small noise, like a frequency he couldn't quite catch, and it grew louder and louder until the sound of the bell ringing became piercing to his ears.

There was something that Yagyuu was meant to remember, meant to be aware of, but it was something his mind couldn't quite catch. It must be because Niou's kiss was sucking the air out of his lungs...

Blind fingers finally found the loose knot of the drawstrings. Yagyuu yanked at it and Niou shifted himself slightly to give his partner better access. That alarm, that buzzing in Yagyuu's mind grew louder though, and as if in response, Niou's hand suddenly sped up, leaving Yagyuu no room for thought. It wasn't until Niou pulled away from the kiss to blow hot breath into his ear, and the intensity of the sensations made Yagyuu abandon trying to pleasure Niou in return and instead held on tight to the hard body, that Yagyuu realised the buzz no longer only existed in his mind.

The entrance phone.

Yagyuu's entire body stiffened as he remembered what he was supposed to remember.

"What." Niou asked, his voice harsh and dry, making Yagyuu shiver involuntarily.

"That's Rebecca." Yagyuu forced the words out as Niou's other hand pushed his pants down and cupped his balls. "Niou, stop it..." His fiancée was coming to cook him dinner tonight and he had completely forgotten. He was going to get married soon, he couldn't afford to fall into the madness that was Niou.

"Ignore her."

Those hands worked harder and Yagyuu found it almost impossible to speak. "She has my keys." He gritted out between clenched teeth as the buzzing stopped. She would be coming up.

The other man gave no verbal response but suddenly went down on one knee. Yagyuu cried out, hands automatically going to fist handfuls of black hair, hair that Yagyuu remembered to be silver-white, when lips wrapped around him and the mouth began to suck as a tongue ran up and down his length.

"Ni...ou..." This couldn't be happening. "Ah..." He sighed when Niou pulled back a little and licked his length like he would a lollipop. The tongue drew across the head as Niou's hand stroked the balls, and Yagyuu couldn't get the rest of his words out.

Rebecca was coming up. Niou was on one knee before him, sucking him off. If he was lucky she would still be waiting for the lift to take her up thirty floors. Niou, yes, _yes_. She wouldn't be up here so soon. Niou Niou Niou Niou...

Yagyuu yanked hard on Niou's hair, forcing him to take him whole as he climaxed. At first Niou gagged but soon he was squeezing Yagyuu hard with his throat muscles, sucking him dry, swallowing every drop that shot deep into his mouth.

Wide-eyed, panting hard with the exertion, Yagyuu watched Niou get up to his feet. Hands grabbed the lapels of Yagyuu's shirt and pulled them together, a smirk on Niou's lips as he pretended to adjust the other's clothing.

"Thanks for the meal."* Niou licked his lips. "Guess I'll leave the fucking for next time."

With that he let go of Yagyuu and crossed the room to get a t-shirt from his backpack. Yagyuu stood frozen for a second before he could react. Shit. What on Earth happened just now? Shit! How could Niou just appear and do this to him!

"Niou!" His voice echoed against the walls as Niou flopped onto the sofa. He couldn't remember when the last time he raised his voice like this was.

"Aren't you going to get dressed?" The man turned to him and tilted his head once, indicating the front door. "Or do you... because you know, I'm fucking hard right now." And just to prove it, fingers lifted the t-shirt to show the obvious bulge underneath track pants.

Averting his eyes and taking a shaky breath, Yagyuu hastily adjusted his clothes. Luckily his glasses didn't suffer from the fall. He was working on his belt when the doorbell rang once, followed by keys in the door lock.

"Hiroshi?" Yagyuu's fiancée walked in, taking off her high-heels as she did so. Yagyuu entered her peripheral vision and she smiled, going up to him for a quick kiss. Then she noticed the third person in the room. Niou lifted one lazy arm and wriggled his fingers in greeting.

Yagyuu coughed once. "Niou, from my high school. Rebecca, my fiancée."

Niou arched an eyebrow, obviously not missing the fact that Yagyuu didn't introduce him as a "friend". But he didn't say anything about it and instead focused on Rebecca. "Foreigner?"

"Half Australian." The woman replied. Yagyuu wanted to twitch watching the two of them converse.

All of a sudden Niou spoke in English. "I only just came back from Cairns."

"Really?" Rebecca let go of Yagyuu's hands and walked around to sit near Niou at the sofa, rather impressed. It was rare to meet someone who could speak her home tongue so well. "For holiday? Cairns is such a gorgeous place."

"I travel around." Niou shrugged and gestured at his backpack. "Coming back for a short while, just called Yagyuu to see if he can put me up. But if it's not convenient..."

Yagyuu wanted to bury his face in his hands. The bastard.

"Of course not. Actually I was coming to make Hiroshi dinner but my parents want me home tonight so I have to go in a moment. Now I don't have to feel so guilty about it." Rebecca tucked long hair behind an ear, smiling in relief. She turned around and found Yagyuu still standing. "Hiroshi I'm sorry..."

Yagyuu just nodded. He was still feeling weak from what happened just minutes ago and the man, the old teammate who had just given him the blow job of a lifetime was chatting casually with his wife-to-be. Acting was his forte but at this moment, it took all his strength to just look normal.

"Why are you still standing there?" The woman blinked. Yagyuu was never an expert on hospitality. "You haven't even got Niou a drink." She sighed, getting up, then noticed the look on Yagyuu's face. A hand went to feel a forehead that was warmer than normal. "Hiroshi?"

Yagyuu grasped Rebecca's wrist gently and pulled it away. "Just a little tired today. Sit down, I'll get you two some drinks."

"No need, I've drunk plenty." The hint of laughter in Niou's voice was obvious to Yagyuu and he didn't even need to look to know Niou was licking his lips. Telling Rebecca again to sit down, he went to the kitchen.

Tonight he could just pretend. He would be able to hide this. Rebecca had to go soon and Niou... Yagyuu would do something about him. Niou couldn't stay here. Niou couldn't...

But on this same night, seven years ago on Niou's eighteenth birthday, he had...

When Rebecca left she asked Niou if they could meet up later, because she wanted to hear stories about Yagyuu back in high school. Niou agreed with a smirk.

Nothing could describe the relief Yagyuu felt when he closed the door. Niou flopped back to the sofa and watched with detached amusement.

"You think that was very funny."

"I do."

The smirk faded from Niou's lips when the other man crossed the room and picked up the backpack, coming back to hold it in front of him. A moment of silence passed, then Niou stood up. The message was clear enough.

Thick socks, steel-toed boots. Backpack on his shoulders and fastened across his chest. Niou let himself out.

 

 

Side N

After leaving home, school, and everything else he knew, Niou never bothered to bleach his hair again when it grew out. There was no reason to. When black roots began to show, he got hold of one of those shavers Jackal used to use often and with it took off all the white strands, leaving behind a short black stubble. He got sick of that white hair.

He left home on a bitterly cold December day with nothing on his back apart from clothing, some mementos which he considered setting fire to, and the money he had saved up over the years - wouldn't Yagyuu be surprised that he had a saving. The money was enough for two to travel far away, but there was just Niou. But he wasn't the one who made the choice.

Niou didn't leave Japan immediately and had stayed with Yukimura whilst he waited for his visa approval. It was the final stretch of the road towards university entrance exams, but when Yukimura wasn't studying, they talked. Niou talked about his non-existant plans and Yukimura smiled and listened, never interrupting; Yukimura talked about his dream and Niou couldn't understand why his captain seemed more jaded than he was, why at eighteen years of age he didn't have bigger dreams, more tangible goals, why Yukimura chose to do something Niou wouldn't be able to do himself. His leaving was enough proof of that.

The one thing, one person they never mentioned during those two weeks was Yagyuu.

When he was finally ready to leave, Niou called home. He didn't want anyone to send a search party after him. His brother answered the call and said their parents never worried about him even though he had been missing for a while. Apparently they said something along the lines of the home being too small to contain him. Pretty excuse to hide the fact that they never loved or cared.

The only time Yukimura had mentioned Yagyuu was the night before Niou's departure.

"Whatever it was Yagyuu had done, I don't think he meant it. He probably hasn't even realised."

But how could anyone do something without meaning it? Words said, things done, even without thinking and particularly without thinking, were the truest of all. Besides, it wasn't about what Yagyuu had done but what he had not.

In fact, it was about Niou himself. Perhaps in his devil-may-care, cynical mind he still believed in fairy tales. Yagyuu had once said Niou was never going to grow up and maybe he was right.

Whatever. The fairy tale never happened anyway.

He left on the day Yukimura had his first exam, slipping away silently when Yukimura wasn't home, not bothering to leave a note.

Niou went wherever his mood took him, occasionally did hard labour and worked at hostels, helping to clean and cook - wouldn't everyone be proud of him - when he ran low on cash. A few times he had been cheated on his wages, but there were also those who paid him extra for hard work (apparently nobody expected temps to work seriously), even asking him to stay on several occasions. But that was against Niou's rules, and he turned them all down just as he always ignored the requests to stay from his one-night-stands. He had made it clear to all these people in the beginning that he would always be moving on.

Moving on.

When Niou was busy making sure he could feed himself, he forgot about home, school, friends and even Yagyuu. But there was one day every year when memories, shared only between himself and someone no longer important, would surface and take him by a force he could not control no matter where he was, what colour his hair was or for how long the small box of momentos had sat in the bottom of his backpack, untouched all these years. But he bore with it. One day he wasn't going to care anymore because none of it was important.

He wasn't sure if it had been a good thing to finally check his email when he went on the internet to search for flight details. Yanagi had sent him details that allowed him to log on to a website built for Rikkai students to keep in touch. But he logged on anyway, and the first thing he found out was that Sanada was in a coma, one leg gone but not any less than the man he used to be. He had braved a blaze so strong it took out an entire street of old housing, to save one boy.

Familiar names appeared before his eyes as he looked through the replies to that announcement post. Any thought of going back to see his vice-captain died when he saw Yagyuu's name.

He wasn't avoiding Yagyuu. Yagyuu had made his choice and Niou also made his own, that was all.

Instead, he sent a card and for bad humour, a bottle of the drink Sanada used to force down his throat every practice because it "keeps top athletes going 33% longer". And if anyone had ever said Niou had never done anything for his Rikkai classmates apart from tennis, they could all shut up and go to hell. At least he tried.

He ignored the message from Yagyuu in his user account. Fuck that man and his half-hearted attempt in... whatever he was wishing to achieve. Stay on good terms with everyone from his past, most probably. But Niou didn't want to stay in the past and there could be no present between them. Whether Yaguyu was aware of it or not, whether he meant it or not - Yukimura's words from years ago came to mind again - he had made his choice and there was no going back. If Yagyuu wanted another chance well, life never came with many of those.

But since then, wherever he was, Niou kept himself updated with news from his class. It wouldn't hurt, he wasn't escaping from his past. At one point, amongst the messages that he and Yukimura exchanged, Yukimura said that Niou had grown up.

Niou had replied with something along the lines of "well wouldn't Yagyuu be surprised.".

 

_Come back, Niou. Yagyuu's getting engaged._

 

_He wants me to be his best man?  
How are things with the bastard?_

 

_That woman may not be good for him.  
The same. The way it's been all these years._

 

_In what way? Did you tell him that? What the fuck has this gotta do with me?  
He isn't an idiot. He must know._

 

_Come and see for yourself. I say only what I think I should. Because you and him are my First Doubles.  
Sometimes it's just... difficult. Especially now that his mobility will never be the same as before, and you know what kind of a person he is._

 

_I'll go back. Just to see you, Buchou, and bring you some Australian sunshine._

 

Niou hadn't even thought about what he was doing or going to do when he sent a card to Yagyuu, announcing his return. Later he reasoned with himself that he only did it because Yukimura wanted him to. One last chance for Yagyuu.

The flight felt like any other. It wasn't until when the plane touched down and shook inevitably upon contact that Niou realised he was on Japanese soil once again.

 

Nobody recognised the black-haired, dishevelled Niou who stood on the stone steps of Rikkai University's main entrance, a backpack leaning against his legs. But that came as no surprise considering almost all who knew him had graduated, apart from Yukimura, who left the building alone. Yukimura smiled and Niou gave his trademark smirk, and he bowed, bending his knees a little and a hand on his back. "I hath returned, my King. May I have the pleasure in presenting you with... oh fuck it." He rolled eyes at himself then pulled out a small glass jar from his backpack as Yukimura chuckled. "From sunny Australia."

Yukimura accepted the gift with both hands. It was probably an old jam jar, washed carefully and its lid sealed using wax. He took one look through the clear glass and understood. It wasn't just an empty container. "Thank you." It was as though he felt warmth from the jar, and it lit up his smile as he ran a fingertip along the glass. "I'll treasure this."

For a rare moment Niou felt embarrassed. He pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his pants and shrugged.

"Sanada still has your bottle of _Lucozade Sport_ by his bedside." Yukimura was still the same, his voice as gentle as ever. "But now that I have your sunshine I don't need to be jealous of him anymore."

Niou twisted the material of his pockets with his fingers and took a moment to digest the information Yukimura had just passed him as they headed away from the campus.

"Let's go and have an early dinner. Yakiniku. I'll treat." Yukimura chuckled softly when Niou's eyes brightened. "Will you be coming to my place tonight?"

Niou nodded briefly. "But tomorrow and after that, it'll depend on whether Yagyuu lets me fuck with him or not."

"Fuck with him, or fuck him?"

Niou blinked as he heard such words coming from Yukimura's lips. But Yukimura wasn't the perfect, holy being everyone imagined, and only Niou knew that. Niou used to wonder why him, of all people, but now he understood. It wasn't that Yukimura didn't let anyone see that side of him, it was how the man was idealised until every negative detail was automatically filtered out by minds that didn't want to see the greater truth. Everybody needs an idol, a hero, and Yukimura was always the one.

"That... will all come as one package."

"I hope you will only be spending tonight with me then. Even though I enjoy talking with you so much."

Niou laughed. Yukimura didn't tease or try to give advice, or ask about his sudden change of heart about meeting Yagyuu; he liked this about his friend. "We have all night."

 

"Isn't it astounding how much can happen within such a small circle of friends? Marui isn't good at keeping in touch and Jackal is far away, but the rest of us... it makes me wonder sometimes. We spend our lives wanting that something that we know is right in front of us but completely beyond our reach.

"I know it's wrong but I let Renji fuck me, and he never says anything when the name I scream isn't his. A moment of brief comfort for both of us, as if we have in our hands what we're reaching for. When we part I feel satiated yet repulsed, but I can't stop myself from calling him again later..."

Niou never knew about any of this, but he knew that feeling too well. Sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, denim-clad legs spread and stretched in front of him, he didn't comment.

"I know I'm using Renji but I can't stop myself. Every time I call him I wish he wouldn't say 'I'll be there in a minute', and every time I see him I wish he'd just say we must stop. I know I'm hurting him but he lets me, I keep leeching and he keeps giving..."

Niou didn't say anything. Of course Yukimura knew Yanagi was probably thinking of the same thing, that he was using Yukimura's weakness to get what he could from the man, even if it meant he would only ever be the comforter. There were too many shades of grey in this world; it was impossible to say if any of this was wrong.

"Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and feel hopeful; I'd spend all my energy on him that day. Sometimes I feel that I'd do anything, beg if I have to, for him to recognise what there is between us. Sometimes I just don't want to do anything and I'd call Renji and we'd do it until I've screamed enough to lose my voice so that I can't cry, at least not out loud.

"Then there are times when I want to leave everything behind, and I'd think of you."

A thoughtful silence fell over the two. Sitting on his bed, Yukimura shifted his gaze from his hand that was drawing patterns on the bedsperad to Niou, who still sat on the carpet like a masterless puppet, staring at something faraway that no one could see.

"I'd made decision to leave long before Yagyuu made his choice." He murmured as he got up in slow motion. "And I didn't have the guts to hang on like you."

"Home is where the heart is. I'm not the runaway type; I don't have that courage." Yukimura didn't move when Niou sat down beside him and brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. "Unlike you."

"I don't know if it's the wrong choice, coming home." Admission came much easier than Niou thought it would be, perhaps because it was only to Yukimura.

"You wouldn't know until you've tried."

 

Niou arrived two hours before Yagyuu did. Standing on the kerbside, leaning against an emergency phonebox, he waited with more patience than he had ever allowed himself to have before. He had come all the way back, he would spend the entire night just to prove he should not have got his hopes up.

And then when Yagyuu showed up, he waited for the man to give up.

Aided by streetlamps, Niou could just see the man was holding a card in his hand, the one Niou had sent him from Australia, reading its contents over and over again. But there wasn't much to read apart from the printed message and Niou's name signed at the bottom righthand corner. As if he actually cared.

It took Niou half an hour to realise Yagyuu was going to be there all night, just as he was. With a smirk directed at no one, he picked up his backpack and got onto the footbridge. He used to pride himself in being able to read people's actions five, ten steps before the person even knew them himself, but it seemed it would take some practice to get his touch back.

His strides grew increasingly impatient as he neared Yagyuu. Smart clothes that called to be ripped off, hair that called to be touched, glasses that hid nothing at all. Yes, Yagyuu was still the same and yes, he wanted to fuck this man right away just as Yukimura said he would. But instead, he held on to the patience he had summoned for the night when Yagyuu turned and saw him.

Dropping down the weight on his shoulders, Niou leaned wearily against the rail; he hadn't had enough rest. "You know, I think I'm addicted to this damned drink Sanada used to make us all drink at practice." He said, idle talk that saved them from pointless greetings. He held a bottle of _Lucozade Sport_ by its neck with his fingertips, threatening to drop it onto the traffic below.

"Sanada was rather amused that you sent him a bottle."

Yagyuu lied. Niou knew because Yukimura told him that when Sanada woke and saw the bottle, he threw it across the room, and it had hit Yukimura, bruising the young man. Sanada didn't see the humour at the time, only the mockery that he would never be his old athletic self again, even though later he regretted his actions. Or maybe Yukimura had lied to Yagyuu about it. Either way it didn't matter. Niou made a mental note to ask Yukimura how much Yagyuu knew, if anything at all.

"Happy birthday, Niou."

"What's so happy about it?" Niou wanted to ask, but instead he smirked. "I can't believe you actually remember."

"I can't believe you know my old home's address."

Niou watched the blue liquid swirl in his bottle. Since when had Yagyuu started underestimating him?

"You've moved out? Like those single bachelors?"

"I've got engaged. Did you check the class website?"

So here it comes, the engagement. Niou stole a glance at the simple ring on Yagyuu's middle finger. Really, if Yagyuu had found the love of his life, what the hell was Niou doing here? Yagyuu wouldn't want to give things another go, that much was clear, otherwise he wouldn't have mentioned the engagement.

"Yeah. That's excellent. Fucking excellent." He said as he drained his bottle. He didn't need a Yagyuu who obviously didn't need him. But the sounds of racing streetcars interrupted Niou's thoughts, stopping him from turning and leaving right then. He watched Yagyuu as the vehicles passed under the bridge, keen eyes taking in the way the breeze lifted the man's hair, the way the adam's apple moved as Yagyuu swallowed, fingers closing hard on the guardrail, white knuckles showing under taut skin and ...

He didn't need a Yagyuu who didn't need him. But he could still want Yagyuu, yes.

So he invited himself to Yagyuu's place.

 

Yagyuu's questions on their way home were tactful, but nothing that Niou couldn't reply with just his silence. Was Yagyuu totally ignorant on what he intended to do? Was Yagyuu simply thinking that he was letting an old friend stay for the night? But they weren't friends, they hadn't been since Yagyuu held him for the first time on his thirteenth birthday, on the playground that had been replaced by a multi-lane highway.

It must had just been him and his fairy tale imagination.

But Niou had learned fairy tales never existed, were never going to happen, the hard way. And he was going to destroy any remaining hope with his own hands.

Because he didn't want to be Yagyuu's friend. It was going to be all or nothing. He had always been that way.

The way Yagyuu was looking around the apartment when Niou finished his shower made Niou smirk. The sofa? The bed? "How about neither?" Niou didn't care as long as he got what he wanted. "How about I fall asleep inside you?"

Yagyuu smelled good, that was the first thing that came to Niou's mind as he held the taller man, who seemed too shocked to react. He could feel the lines of Yagyuu's body, muscles still lean under the clothing like the way Yagyuu had always been, thin but not to the point of wirey, and definitely not delicate. That familiar feeling stirred in his lower abdomen. It was something he had been trying to find a subsitute for, for seven years. But nothing could be better than the real thing. Lust was such a funny thing.

The glasses had to go first. They would make kissing awkward. "Let's cut the talking." Niou said when Yagyuu finally shouted his name, and took the glasses off the other's face, revealing shocked but not very confused eyes. "This is my party."

With a fair amount of initial resistance followed by unmasked desire, Niou found their first kiss to be one that suited them well. But as he pushed his tongue into Yagyuu's mouth and found himself welcomed, as Yagyuu's groans encouraged roaming hands, he found himself wondering what this all meant, if Yagyuu was accepting there was something more or if this was simply a fling before he was bound to a woman for life.

But sex was sex, and Niou knew how to close his eyes and let things happen.

Hands dragged down hard as he sucked on Yagyuu's nipple, feeling every rib, every vibration of muscles beneath his fingers. He undid the buckle of the belt then with one swift movement pulled the belt out, dropping it carelessly beside them. The pants were an easy affair and as Niou kissed his way up the heaving chest, past the neck, jawline and then finally covering Yagyuu's lips with his own once again, he slipped his hand inside opened pants and felt the body melt and mould against him.

Yagyuu smelled good, tasted good, a completely eager partner who Niou knew wasn't going to resist if this led on to all of their clothes being shed and one body thrusting into the other and hell, Niou was hard but if this was Yagyuu's first time with a man - and Niou could feel it - did he really want to take it that far? But this might be their only time...

Niou broke the kiss to rest his chin on his partner's shoulder and lips closed on a earlobe, nibbling and licking it as he continued to stroke. He could let Yagyuu decide, or if he really couldn't hold back then well, Yagyuu would have to deal with it and nothing, including that bloody entrance phone, was going to stop him.

But the way Yagyuu suddenly tensed up told Niou it wasn't going to be a wrong delivery or people asking for donations, so he finally asked.

Yagyuu muttered a woman's name and told him to stop.

Stop?

Niou ignored the request, dropped down on a knee and took Yagyuu into his mouth. Hands immediately grabbed for his hair, but not to stop him and as Yagyuu gasped his name, he allowed himself a small smirk of triumph. He wasn't trying to compete but that was what it came down to at this particular moment.

Niou 1, what's-her-face 0.

He had to stop himself from smirking to concentrate on working on Yagyuu when the man pulled on his hair and at the same time thrust his hips forward, pushing himself all the way into Niou's mouth. Surprised, he gagged but quickly adjusted and he swallowed, milked Yagyuu dry. He liked it when Yagyuu used force, it never happened often enough.

Yagyuu was a sight to behold, pants pushed down and shirt open, gasping for breath, a light sheen of sweat on his skin. Good, he enjoyed it. Niou knew he wasn't going to get what he set out to get, but he could wait until he saw Yagyuu's reactions and then decide if it was really ever going to happen or not. Licking his lips, he pulled Yagyuu's shirt back together and ran a hand over to smooth down the material.

The woman, _the goddamn fiancée_ , arrived just in time to stop Yagyuu from losing his control. As soon as she entered the apartment, she kissed Yagyuu and Yagyuu was suddenly the gentleman again, not the one who made Niou deep-throat him only minutes ago.

Yagyuu coughed, and introduced Niou as someone from his high school.

Not a friend?

Niou had to admit that the woman, Rebecca, was more than the average girl. She had the looks and the way she talked showed intelligence and confidence. But Niou didn't think Yagyuu would have settled for anyone less.

So what was it that Yukimura found wrong about her? "Come and see for yourself", Yukimura had said, and Niou was confident in his skill of watching people. But he couldn't see what Yukimura wanted him to see.

Niou couldn't resist the chance of speaking up when Yagyuu offered to get them drinks. "No need, I've drunk plenty." He licked his lips and watched Yagyuu head to the kitchen. He carried on the casual chat with Rebecca until the woman had to leave, and smirked and said sure when she asked if they could meet again. She wanted to hear stories about Yagyuu's high school days. He could take his time to find out what Yukimura didn't like in this woman. It might prove interesting.

Sinking back into the sofa when the front door closed, he arched an eyebrow at Yagyuu and couldn't quite contain the glint of amusement in his eyes. Yagyuu was going to say something, something he wasn't going to like, but Niou didn't have the energy to care anymore. He had done enough in one night, he had given Yagyuu the chance and if Yagyuu had made his choice, then so be it.

He stopped smirking when Yagyuu held the backpack in front of him.

Nothing else needed to be said.

Yagyuu didn't want him in his life.

Not a friend, and not anybody at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Side Y

When Yagyuu left his apartment just moments later, the lift was on the fifteenth floor and not moving. Allowing himself a brief moment to think, he glanced at the fire door, which led to the emergency stairs. Niou would have thought about going to the roof, then he would decide against it and go straight down instead. He wouldn't linger anywhere near the building.

Taking the elevator Yagyuu went down. He was already waiting at the emergency exit when Niou pushed open the metal door, and the rarely-used hinges complained by screeching loudly.

He didn't seem surprised to see the other man waiting for him outside, leaning casually against the stone wall. Shifting the weight on his shoulders once, Niou spoke first.

"I take it you don't like blow jobs."

Yagyuu's face remained carefully expressionless at that statement.

"Still, it was a good party." Slamming the door shut behind him, Niou kept walking. "A bit short, but still good."

Yagyuu's eyes followed. Those where Niou's parting words. If he didn't say something Niou was going to literally vanish into the night, again.

"The parties always carried on until the next day." He said. Gut feelings told him not to let Niou go. Although he was never an impulsive person, he knew when to listen to these emotions. The decision to ask Niou to leave had been wrong.

Niou gave no obvious reaction that Yagyuu could see. "Too late."

Yagyuu took a deep breath and pushed himself off the wall. No matter how casually Niou spoke and how many years he had not seen this man, it was still blatantly obvious to him Niou wasn't saying what he had accepted, but what was Yagyuu's reality. But it was too late for what? For Niou to reveal why he had left and why he returned? For them to simply accept it was friendship, very close friendship between them? For them to take that friendship further? For the birthday party that Niou wanted but was denied? For sexual encounters they never had until this day?

"I've got gin and whisky," Yagyuu didn't want to think about it. He could sort this out later. It was more urgent to not let Niou disappear again. "and vodka."

Niou paused mid-step. Then he was laughing. When he turned and found Yagyuu staring at him, the same dispassionate expression on his face as always, he shook his head, snickering. "You're a very, very bad man."

Alcohol was a good excuse Yagyuu could use to ask Niou not to leave, a good excuse Niou could use to not leave, and a good excuse for the party to carry on.

By the time they ran out of juice to go with the vodka, Yagyuu was feeling more than a little tipsy. A haunting feeling of déjà vu came to him when he sat across the sofa and Niou stripped off his own t-shirt, sat between Yagyuu's legs and leaned back into the man. When they were younger, at Niou's parties where only the two of them celebrated, Yagyuu would hold Niou like this when the boy was high on whatever he was high on, and he would feel the lithe body tremble in his arms. He would protect Niou when he was most exposed, most vulnerable.

Niou shouldn't know about this. Coincidence?

"What." The man tilted his head back, trying to rest his head on Yagyuu's shoulder and failing. His words didn't slur despite the way he leaned heavily into Yagyuu as if drunk. "Am I too heavy for you now?"

No coincidence at all. "No."

Neither of them said anything when Yagyuu's arms wrapped around Niou. There was a sense of long lost familiarity. They were not grown men but the schoolboys they were years ago, and it didn't really matter where it was as long as Niou wasn't at home, because Niou used to say every year that he was going to run away from home on his birthday and away he always ran, even though he always went back afterwards.

The sudden tensing of the body cradling him didn't seem to surprise Niou at all when he closed his eyes and pulled the string holding his pants loose. Fingers pushed under the fabric. There could be no doubt to what he was doing.

"Niou - "

"Shut up." Turning his face to the side, the man half buried his face into Yagyuu's shoulders.

Yagyuu didn't ask what Niou was seeing behind his eyelids; he could make an intelligent guess. Soon he could feel the thumping of Niou's heart, well-muscled chest rising and falling rapidly as that hand began to move faster. Everything was silent apart from Niou's harsh, rapid breathing through parted lips. Yagyuu had never seen or wanted to see another man do this, but his own breathing caught. He shouldn't be watching, imagining what was happening underneath those track pants. He shouldn't let Niou do this here. This was wrong, he was going to get married, he shouldn't be wanting to touch himself and the man in his arms.

Niou always made him do things he would otherwise never do, on his birthdays.

Holding the man to him tighter, one of Yagyuu's hands reached down to pull Niou's away. Niou growled in complaint until fingers slipped into the pants and grasped his erection, and the hard body against Yagyuu's seemed to melt in that instant. He worked Niou hard and fast and Niou writhed against him, but he didn't utter a single words or lift his hips, choosing to let Yagyuu pin him against himself.

Niou never said a word, not even when he took Yagyuu's hand away from him and took a finger into his mouth, sucking on it as he began to work himself again. When he let the wet finger slip from his lips and brought it against his own opening, Yagyuu froze again but holding Yagyuu's wrist, Niou didn't give him time to hesitate and made him push the finger in. And even then, when his mouth opened and jaw tightened and his entire body trembled, Niou didn't say anything, not a word of pain or pleasure, not even Yagyuu's name.

Perhaps his intelligent guess was wrong, Yagyuu thought as he pressed that finger against Niou's inside and his arm locked around Niou's midriff. Simple human anatomy told him where he should press and as he felt Niou respond, it wasn't what he was doing that was on his mind, but the question of who Niou was seeing behind closed eyes, and what he could be thinking.

Niou's hand grasped the one holding him when he came. Eyes tightly shut he turned himself further, pushing his face into Yagyuu's chest, as if trying to bury himself, to hide himself. Bringing his arm up Yagyuu held Niou's head, curling his shoulders around Niou. To shield him from whatever he was hiding from.

He felt lips moving against his shirt.

The vodka burned all the way down Yagyuu's throat when he accepted the bottle from Niou's shaking hand and took a swig of the liquid, and he could feel the alcohol rushing straight to his head. Between them they finished what remained in the bottle.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

 

When Yagyuu woke, all evidence of the night before had been erased. The empty packets of nuts, the bottle, the soiled t-shirt Niou used to wipe them clean were all gone. No proof whatsoever. Nothing remained apart from memories, feelings, intangible things that could not be seen, measured or calculated.

That was the way it always was. Whatever they did on the night of the party, they never spoke about it again. They carried on with their lives as if nothing had ever happened.

A brief wave of nausea assaulted him when he got up and took a look around. The apartment was the way it had always been.

Niou's backpack was gone.

Had Niou only been his imagination?

No evidence. Was that really what he wanted?

Adjusting the glasses he had not removed before falling asleep the previous night, Yagyuu walked slowly, doubtfully, towards the bedroom. He found the backpack on the tiled floor of the bathroom. Niou was asleep in his bed.

Yagyuu stood and watched until he felt stupid doing it.

Nobody was ever going to find out about last night, but memories were always more haunting than proof.

 

One thing Yagyuu enjoyed about his job, apart from it paying extremely well, was that the working hours were strictly nine to six and he always had the weekend off. Rebecca, working as an assistant manager in a designer clothes store, often worked long hours and sometimes had to work on weekends as well.

"What is it?" Rebecca asked before taking a bite of her blueberry muffin. Yagyuu's face relaxed, just a little, at the way she closed her eyes briefly and smiled. She had such a sweet tooth.

"I was thinking that you may want to work part time instead, after we get married."

"I will. We've talked about this before." She replied, checking the time quickly. She only had half an hour for lunch and it wasn't usual for Yagyuu to call her out like this. "I mean, why did you call me for lunch?"

"Can't I?"

"You know I don't mean it like that."

"I just," Yagyuu thought about the man probably still asleep in his bed. "suddenly wanted to see you."

Rebecca was silent for a while as she searched her fiancé's face. She put the muffin down on the bone china plate. "Are you mad at me about last night?"

Yagyuu felt a bit puzzled. "No. Why did you say that?"

"Because I promised you dinner but only sat down for a few minutes, and I talked more to your friend than I did to you."

Yagyuu didn't even notice. His mind was too preoccupied to notice that last night. "That's fine."

"My parents are getting more worked up than I am about us. They keep thinking I'm going to disappear from their lives once we get married." Rebecca played with her engagement ring, frowning slightly.

"I mean it. It's fine."

"It's just that..." She looked back up from her ring to Yagyuu's eyes. "You never say things like that. I guess I'm just surprised."

It was reassurance maybe. Staring at the form under his blanket in the morning, Yagyuu couldn't help but remember all that had happened the night before, parted lips sucking him, body writhing against him, eyes squeezed tightly shut and face buried in his chest. And the first thing he wanted to do was to see Rebecca. For reassurance. For confirmation of some sort.

Would Niou still be asleep? Yagyuu didn't leave any note or keys for the man. Would Niou leave? Was he really just back for his birthday?

"So I'm not the only one early... ah, Rebecca. How're you?"

Yagyuu halted his train of thoughts, turning to see Yukimura standing beside him. Dressed in white and powder-blue, Yukimura gave off a boyish air that didn't suit his age. But he was the type of man who would give one the feeling of timelessness. His smile, his tone, everything about him was gentle with hidden strength.

"Quite well. Yourself?" Rebecca's reply was terse.

"Just the same. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disrupt the two of you. I'll come back later..."

Before Yagyuu could reply, Rebecca stood, wiping the tips of her fingers with a napkin. "I should get going anyway." She smiled and said goodbye to the two men. Yagyuu's gaze followed her out of the coffee house as Yukimura sat down, waving a waiter over to order his water.

"Is Rebecca afraid of you?" Yagyuu lifted his own black coffee and sipped it. To his knowledge Rebecca and Yukimura had always got on quite well.

Yukimura just shrugged. "A smart woman always knows when to give her man some space with his friends."

It made sense, so Yagyuu accepted that explanation.

"Although, you should be careful." Yukimura's voice dropped and he gestured at the ring on Yagyuu's middle finger. "A ring, a certificate, these won't ever bind a woman's heart. Vows and promises are merely words. And words can mean nothing in the end."

Yukimura's water was served. Yagyuu didn't say anything.

"She's an intelligent, beautiful and independent young woman." The man continued, taking a sip of his water. He was smiling but the smile didn't reach his eyes, enough to tell Yagyuu that his companion was being serious. "You have to watch her carefully."

Yagyuu would have felt insulted if he wasn't there to watch Yukimura trying to pick up the pieces of his parents' failed marriage several years ago. He said this not as a curse or an insult, but as a word of advice and warning for the sake of a friend.

"Yukimura. Thank you." If Yagyuu was someone who showed emotion in his voice, the words would have sounded heart-felt. But as it was, Yukimura understood and simply nodded.

"You're going to be the first one of us to tie the knot and settle down." Corners of dark eyes crinkled up. Resting elbows on the table, Yukimura weaved his fingers together and rested his chin on them. But even in such a pose, the man gave an air of being someone immovable, someone made of much sterner stuff than he appeared at first glance. "I take personal responsibility as your captain to ensure you've made the right choices."

"...What do you mean?" Was there something Yukimura knew? Did he know about Niou?

Yukimura just shrugged, his smile as serene as ever.

 

All that had happened the night before had been an exception, something that would never happen again. It was Niou's birthday, the day he always ran away from home ever since he hit teenage, and on that day Yagyuu would let him do everything he wanted because he knew he would see Niou in school again twenty-four hours later. His shirt would be untucked, his tie loose and even the Rikkai emblem on his shirt would be skewed... but he would go back to school and fall back in line, somewhat.

But they were no longer students. Yagyuu wasn't going to go back to school to find a dishevelled Niou smirking at him and the rest of the world, events of the previous night buried in their memories.

Niou never stayed in the playground the day after his birthday.

Yagyuu's steps hastened as he thoughts ran wild. He should've thought about that. Niou would leave as soon as he woke.

But what good would it do if Niou stayed?

The plastic bag holding his shopping swung in his hand, slapping against his leg when he stopped at the lobby.

It would be better if Niou went.

"Yagyuu-san."

Yagyuu moved his gaze from the elevator doors to the security guard.

"Just want to check if you had a guest. I was off-duty last night but saw an unfamiliar face boarding the lift from your floor earlier today."

The elevator's bell rang once and doors opened smoothly beside Yagyuu. "He's my guest." Apart from Rebecca, he didn't have visitors often and none of them looked like Niou. Yagyuu couldn't blame the guard for checking. But his eyes widened when he realised what this meant.

Niou had left. Otherwise the guard wouldn't have seen him.

When the doors closed he leaned on the cold metal wall. Apart from the security camera above him, no one could see him and he didn't care at that moment. Niou was gone, out of his life again. There was a chance to make him stay but he had not taken it.

Wasn't he thinking just moments ago that Niou should leave?

The apartment was expectedly silent. Perhaps, like he had thought before, Niou was only a figment of his imagination.

Niou never did say how long he was going to stay, or even if he was going to stay at all. Just as he said he would every year on his birthday, Niou had chosen to abandon his home. Why did he come back? Why did he leave...

No. Yagyuu knew he should be asking different questions. If he knew the right question to ask, the answer to everything would become obvious. Maybe the answer had been there all along, he just needed the right question for it.

But did he want to know? Should he even care? Niou had gone, everything was going back to normal. As Yagyuu grew older, his former teammate became a memory. He wasn't part of Yagyuu's life like Rebecca or Yukimura. Niou wasn't a part of it anymore, there was no space in his life for someone who suddenly turned up from nowhere. The day Niou left without a message or word of warning was the day he gave up his place in Yagyuu's life.

He never realised he was so bitter because of Niou's unannounced leave.

If Niou was trying to get a second chance, he wasn't going to get it.

The night before, it was Niou's brithday and everything they did on that day was an exception, something that was never going to be repeated. Yagyuu was taken by surprise and seduced, it wasn't something he ever thought he would do to Rebecca. The word betrayal weighed too heavy. It wasn't betrayal; Yagyuu never intended for it to happen. It was a mistake and one Yagyuu would learn from. He had to learn to make the right choices.

Yagyuu stood, putting away the book he wasn't reading when he heard keys in the lock. He hadn't been expecting Rebecca; or did she mention coming to his apartment and it slipped his mind?

The white hair, wild and shining, appeared before the rest of Niou. Shutting the door behind him with a swift kick, the man ignored the other occupant in the apartment and headed to the kitchen.

Niou had somehow got his keys, left the building, bleached his hair and came back. Yagyuu glanced at the bunch of keys Niou had tossed aside and knew Niou had gone through his things. Those were the spare keys he had in a drawer in his room.

He couldn't say if the sigh that escaped his lips was a sigh of relief or of frustration. Niou was still Niou.

Putting his pack of _Lucozade Sport_ in the fridge, Niou didn't turn to look at Yagyuu when the man went to stand behind him. He searched the fridge, pushing bottles of sauces and wrapped packets of meat about until he found some celery which he pulled out.

"Hmm?" Dark grey eyes peeked under a veil of white hair when Niou finally stood straight, turned around and broke a stalk of celery with his teeth.

His face a perfect look of indifference, Yagyuu didn't let anything slip. The question of how long Niou was going to stay died in his throat, because it sent a message that Niou wasn't welcomed here. And he wasn't. It was simply seven years too late. Althought what for, Yagyuu couldn't be sure.

But, remembering that bitter frustration that ate at him earlier when he thought Niou had left again, Yagyuu knew that even though he didn't welcome the man, he wanted him to stay.

It didn't make sense.

Perhaps he was meant to do something. Something that would resolve things between them so that they could move on instead of stalling at the point Niou left them at seven years ago.

"I'm getting married in three months." Why did you go? Why are you here?

"I know. That woman's some hot stuff."

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?" Who did you see behind closed eyes when I held you and put my finger inside of you?

"Should I?"

Yagyuu took a step back before Niou's hand could touch him. Grabbing empty space instead of Yagyuu's soft brown hair, Niou took a look at his own hand, shrugged and ran it through his own hair instead as he left the kitchen. Yagyuu followed him out and watched him sink into the sofa.

"I thought you would, as my friend of thirteen years." What do you want from me?

"You didn't introduce me as such to Rebecca." Niou reached for the remote and the TV came on. His eyes didn't leave the screen when he spoke again after a rare, considered pause. "Fuck it Yagyuu, I'm not your friend. I never have been."

The words rang in Yagyuu's ears.

If Niou wasn't his friend, then what was he?

 

Side N

Not a friend, and not anybody at all.

Weary footsteps weighed down by a night of no sleep and the backpack on his shoulders echoed off the cold concrete walls. Niou couldn't quite keep the smirk on his lips, but he wasn't surprised by Yagyuu's decision and he didn't feel as bitter as he thought he was going to be. It actually made more sense. He wasn't expecting Yagyuu to give up his marriage, not after the man mentioned the engagement and kissed the woman in front of him. This was what he had set out to do anyway, to prove that there could be nothing more between them.

Niou would be bitter if Yagyuu defined him as a friend. But if he wasn't anybody at all, it made letting go much easier.

But damn, he wanted that man. Lust, or something more, whatever it was. He wanted him.

One more turn, another landing and another flight of stairs. This was making him dizzy. Niou paused to adjust the straps on his shoulders before going down again, his footfalls getting heavier with each step. He should have at least slept a bit instead of talk through the night with Yukimura.

Fuck, he really wanted to know what it would feel like to sleep in Yagyuu's bed.

Niou nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the bottom of the stairs, coming face to face with a door that was labelled to be alarmed but Niou knew wasn't. Its hinges screeched when he pushed it open and he stepped out. The chill of December reminded him of the same night, seven years ago, when he left home with a bag on his shoulder and an emptiness in his heart. But this was no time to get sentimental. He should give Yukimura a call to see if the man could put him up again, or otherwise find a hostel, go to sleep and let the night fade away.

And then he saw Yagyuu, arms crossed, his lanky body leaning against the wall beside the exit. Adjusting his pack's straps once again to cover his surprise, he waited a while before speaking.

"I take it you don't like blow jobs." He smirked despite himself. "Still, it was a good party. A bit short, but still good."

He didn't wait for a reaction, not wanting to look like he was expecting anything at all. The night was cold, he had forgotten about putting something warmer on before he came out and the t-shirt wasn't really doing much, but he refused to stop to fish out clothing from his backpack.

Yagyuu spoke then, and there was a tremor in his voice. "The parties always carried on until the next day."

So? This one had ended already. "Too late." Yagyuu had made the choice for the second time. There was no need to do it again. He couldn't turn back just because Yagyuu told him to, it wasn't as simple as that.

But then Yagyuu made it simple by offering alcohol, and Niou's shoulders sagged. Booze, a place to sleep, and Yagyuu. Whilst the first wasn't anywhere near as important, it led to the second and the third. A perfect excuse.

Orange juice and vodka, tonic water and gin. When it all got into the stomach it didn't matter how it tasted, it just left a bitter and sour aftertaste in the mouth. The alcohol boiled his blood and Niou took off his t-shirt, then arranged himself to sit between Yagyuu's legs, leaning back into him. If this was going to be his party, they would have to do it this way: the way it had always been done. Yagyuu around him, Yagyuu holding him, Yagyuu's heart beating against him.

Perhaps Niou was a little drunk.

"What." He felt the man behind him freeze. What was Yagyuu going to do this time? "Am I too heavy for you now?"

"No." Yagyuu didn't make the most comfortable pillow, but he accepted him and bodies relaxed against each other.

Lifting his chin, Niou tried to peer at the man through the veil of black hair over his eyes but it didn't work. Took too much effort. He wondered where this exhaustion came from, but thoughts left him like water between fingers when Yagyuu's fingers danced across his bare skin, then arms held him in an embrace that was... he forgot the word. The booze's fault.

Yagyuu smelled good. He confirmed that for the second time in the night. It was a scent that, coupled with his touch, tickled Niou's senses and he knew what he wanted. If Yagyuu wouldn't give it to him, then at least he could do this...

"Niou - "

"Shut up." Niou closed his eyes.

Yagyuu's hands would have felt smoother, not rough and calloused like his own but that was okay, he could smell him and feel arms tightening around him and he could really believe that it was Yagyuu holding him and jacking him off. He spread his legs wider, bent a knee and then flexed his leg again, dragging his heel on the expensive material of Yagyuu's sofa, trying to contain himself. He writhed, his body starting to feel incredibly hot and all he knew was the sensation that began between his legs and spread to his entire body. Yes, this feels good, Yagyuu. Keep going. Faster, you can't hurt me. More, now. Yagyuu please. _More. Now_.

He couldn't have had said it out loud but Yagyuu must have heard him because he responded. The body cradling Niou shifted and then Yagyuu's hand was pumping him, fast and hard and nearly painful, just as Niou wanted it.

He wetted Yagyuu's finger and forced it inside him. It hurt but felt so incredibly good; he didn't like the pain part, not really, but it always came as a package so he had learned to like it. It never happened painlessly and it never happened with Yagyuu. Niou kept his eyes tightly shut because he knew it wasn't really Yagyuu touching him. He was drunk again and having another one-night-stand.

Niou turned his head to bury his face into the other man's shoulder. This was exactly why he couldn't criticise Yukimura; he had done the same thing on too many occasions, only he wouldn't scream, wouldn't make a single sound because then nobody would know and he wouldn't need to admit to himself who he was thinking about.

But it felt so real this time. The other man wasn't insisting that he opened his eyes, wasn't ripping his clothes off, wasn't making a move to fuck him or telling him to hurry the fuck up. This man was just holding him and letting him do what he wanted. This man felt just like Yagyuu.

It felt so real that when Niou came, he grabbed the arm around him and dug nails into the skin. The hold tightened. Another hand pressed Niou's head to a chest.

When it was over Niou stayed a boneless heap in Yagyuu's arms as he recovered, both physically and mentally. His own words, even though muffed by Yagyuu's shirt, rang in his ears. He needed time to push it to the back of his mind again.

With an unsteady hand Niou picked up his discarded t-shirt and cleaned themselves with it. Yagyuu didn't protest when Niou passed him the bottle of vodka. There was only a small amount left and they finished it neat. It tasted foul but so good.

Niou's eyes were closing when Yagyuu broke the silence.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

Yagyuu, don't let go...

 

It took a few minutes for Niou to recall the details of the night before in his fogged, hung-over mind.

Yagyuu hardly moved at all when Niou got up.

Well, the party was over. Like Yagyuu said, "The parties always carried on until the next day.", and it was the next day. It was the very last party they would have because Niou knew he didn't want any more memories to haunt him. At one point in his life he did believe these parties would lead to something greater but beliefs were dead, so were fairy tales and the white -

Fuck it.

He threw everything away. The bottle, the empty snack packets, even the t-shirt, all into a plastic bag and down the garbage chute. Then he went to the bathroom to clean himself up and get ready to leave.

He passed by the open doorway of Yagyuu's bedroom and paused.

He did say to himself the night before that he wanted to sleep in that bed...

 

Niou hadn't felt so comfortable for years despite his head. But still, he got up and padded out of the room, head heavy and still with that mild ache. Bloody hang-over. Years of independence had taught him how to take care of himself: drink as much water as you can when you have a hang-over, and then some more. Staying in bed wasn't going to help and nobody was going to help you with it.

Including Yagyuu, Niou thought to himself as he looked around the empty apartment.

There was no post-it note on the door and that surprised him. Yagyuu should be the type of guy who would have left a note if he was to leave someone in his home like this, even if he had to go in a hurry. Unless, of course, Yagyuu had changed over the years, or he didn't think Niou needed a note. Probably the latter.

Niou opened the fridge in the kitchen, frowned and slammed the door shut again. Grabbing a glass from the draining board he turned on the tap and helped himself with ice-cold water. What he needed was some _Lucozade_.

Hell, what he really needed was -

Frowning again he sat down - on the sofa where he and Yagyuu... embraced, for the lack of a better word, the night before, but it wouldn't do to get sentimental - and made a phonecall.

"It's me." He said as soon as the call was picked up.

There was a brief pause before Yukimura responded. "Have you been in his place all along?"

Must be the caller ID. "Hmm, he used me for sex and left me to wait at home like a good little mistress." Niou snorted, not bothering to sound amused. "Where are you?"

"Drinking with a friend. Just about to go."

It was the tone Yukimura used to use when he was unimpressed with the tennis team. Was it because of his unfunny joke?

Yukimura asked him to hold for a while so Niou waited. The sounds became a bit muffed, as if Yukimura was shielding his phone with a hand, but Niou heard him and someone else exchange goodbyes and that voice sounded far too familiar.

He kept quiet about it. If he didn't trust Yukimura he might as well be watching half naked women at a beach or working his ass off at a hostel, which seemed to be the only things he ever did in Cairns. Not that he was ever truly short of money - he had enough mind to always keep his head above the water and knew how to get a free drink if he really wanted one - but it kept his mind from thinking.

"Niou," Yukimura said, sighing. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like that just now. It's him that I'm not happy with, not you."

Niou ran a hand through his hair and scratched his scalp. "Don't get so worked up about it; it's nothing to do with you." He knew he sounded like he was saying "mind your own business", but Yukimura would know better.

"I know. I got myself involved. But I want to... I want you two to work."

"He isn't good enough for me."

"I don't think he thinks of you this way."

Niou narrowed his eyes, but he didn't want to argue the point.

"I meet with Yagyuu every week and he tells me many things, but he never talks about you in front of me." The background noises died down. Yukimura must have gone indoors. "Even just now. I was at the coffee house with him."

Niou gave no response to Yukimura's admission.

"And you don't talk about him unless I raise the topic. It says a lot more than if you two can talk about each other casually." A pause, and then a soft chuckle to lighten the atmosphere. "You two are very much alike."

"No, Yukimura-buchou. We aren't 'alike'." Niou didn't even need to think. "I _am_ him."

 

It would be a lie for Niou to say he remembered it all in detail. Events from over 10 years ago, no matter how significant, tended to blur in his memory, losing the sharp edges that would have cut and bled him had he examined too closely. But like a child learning about pain from his first fall, Niou still knew the pain of the cut and stayed away from recalling the past as much as he could.

But ask anyone who knew him, and they would say Niou was "the one who switched identities with Yagyuu during a tennis match in junior high". That was how Niou was defined: The trickster who switched with Yagyuu. He most probably suggested the idea and Yagyuu went along. And to a certain extent it was true, he was the one who came up with the idea, but they had been doing it for far longer than anyone knew.

He had slept in Yagyuu's bed and Yagyuu in his, and nobody knew.

It was Yagyuu who was addicted to the switch, and Yagyuu didn't know.

 

Niou found hair bleach in one of those multi-story drug stores that the Japanese women were so fascinated about, and it did what it said on the box: made his hair white.

Yukimura paused to study Niou when the man came out of the bathroom, and a smile broke on his face. "This colour suits you better," he said, setting down a bowl of noodles. Niou hadn't eaten anything all day; he did extra work for a month just to be able to afford the plane ticket back to Japan. Food, to Niou, became less important when he was low on cash. But Yukimura lived fairly well with the scholarship money for his second university degree so Niou didn't mind relying on him. Yukimura was the lucky type who got paid for doing something he thoroughly enjoyed.

Without a word Niou sat down and began to eat. He was never known for his politeness. What on earth possessed his mind to let Yukimura talk him into making his hair white again he wasn't sure, but what was done, was done. When he first bleached his hair it was only on a whim, but he kept it white until he left Japan, because it bore another meaning then. Did it really suit him better, or was Yukimura fixated on how he used to look seven, ten years ago?

Fuck, he wasn't going to get sentimental about this.

His mind shifted to the weight in his pocket: Yagyuu's keys. In that drawer where he found the keys, Niou also found something else.

It was the emergency drawer, one that held a torch and batteries, a lighter, the extra set of keys and some other items, the drawer that would never be looked at unless in dire emergencies.

Niou found a photo album. In it was one single photograph of him and Yagyuu. It had to be something taken from that infamous tennis match because they were both in their tennis uniform, with identical hair style, only one was white and the other brown. The one with brown hair held a pair of glasses between his fingers and rested his hand on the white one's shoulder. Niou couldn't actually remember which one was himself and which was Yagyuu.

Not thrown away. The photo album was just at a place Yagyuu would never look at. Niou wouldn't blame him; he had his box of mementos untouched at the bottom of his pack as well. Which he left in Yagyuu's house. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go back there, but he snagged the keys and left his backpack anyway. He didn't really need his pack, there was nothing inside that he couldn't do without.

As for the keys, "Give these back to Yagyuu for me." He said, pulling them out of his pocket. He came all the way back, his hair was white and he had Yagyuu's keys, yet his mind was constantly changing. He had hardly given Yagyuu a chance to think, but one night was enough; he didn't need any more of this confusion and neither did he need Yagyuu. He could hang around in the background and go to the wedding and he wouldn't feel a damn thing, except he wouldn't waste time hanging around.

"Just leave them there." Yukimura said, shrugging on a jacket. "I'm going to Sanada's... not sure what time I'll be coming back. You know where the blankets are, if you need them."

Niou set his chopsticks down on the rim of the bowl.

"I don't want to give up on him. At least not today."

The lowering of Niou's eyes was the only acknowledgement Yukimura received. With a half-forced smile he left the house.

Niou's gaze fell on the keys again.

He didn't want to give up on Yagyuu either.

 

At the lobby, the security guard eyed Niou and Niou responded to that wary look by giving the floor number and saying that he was Yagyuu's guest. That piece of information didn't seem to ease the guard's suspicions very much and Niou couldn't help but wonder, if he had dressed up as Yagyuu again, would the guard recognise him despite their different body shapes?

Yagyuu was home when Niou went in. He ignored the man and went to the kitchen, shoving his pack of _Lucozade Sport_ into the fridge. He wouldn't exaggerate and say that he felt Yagyuu's gaze on his back - he didn't have sixth sense - but the shadow Yagyuu was casting was a good indication enough.

Niou rummaged around to find something to chew on before turning to look at the other man. "Hmm?"

Yagyuu's face didn't change. Like the way Yagyuu had always been, he didn't show even a hint of care. "I'm getting married in three months."

Niou didn't flinch, but the words scraped at his ears like nails on chalkboard. Was there a need to go over all of this?

"I know. That woman's some hot stuff." But I want you.

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"Should I?" I fucking want you.

Niou's hand reached out across the space between them but still expressionless, Yagyuu stepped away. But Niou knew there was something there. If there wasn't then the man wouldn't have held him last night. If there wasn't the photo would have been thrown away instead of just put away.

With a shrug and a brief, meaningless shake of his head, Niou left the kitchen and sat down on the sofa. Yagyuu followed and stood nearby.

"I thought you would, as my friend of thirteen years."

"You didn't introduce me as such to Rebecca." I. Want. You.

Niou paused, reached for the remote, switched on the TV, and gained himself a few seconds to calm down. All of a sudden he was a friend again?

"Fuck it Yagyuu, I'm not your friend. I never have been."

I'm your fairy tale.

I'm your white hedgehog.


	3. Chapter 3

Side Y

The game show host on TV chirped away cheerfully, the in-house audience roared, Niou's eyes were fixed to the screen but obviously unseeing whilst Yagyuu stood and... just stood.

He was missing something. He knew that already, something blatantly obvious, something that should have struck him hard and knocked the breath out of him. But it was like getting out of bed, leaving the room and then standing in the hall trying to recall what it was he wanted to do and for the life of him he just couldn't remember. And he didn't want to go back to bed because it had to be something important that made him get up in the first place and he knew once he went back, he wouldn't bother again. The night was cold, he didn't know if it'd be worth it. How could he, if he couldn't even remember what it was in the first place?

Niou wasn't giving him the answer because Yagyuu wasn't asking the right questions. If he knew what to ask then he probably wouldn't even need to ask them out loud.

"So, you're getting married." Niou half turned on the sofa and rested an arm on its back. "If I congratulate you like a friend, what do I get out of it?"

What kind of a question was that?

"Do you want me at your wedding?" Niou switched off the TV then, and dropped the remote aside. In the lengthy silence that followed, Yagyuu listened to the drum of his heartbeat in his ears. Did he want Niou to be there? Did he even... "Who's your bestman? Yukimura? Talk him into handing the job over. Trust me with the rings and all that shit or I won't be there at all."

It felt like there was a hole in his mind, or something was wrong with his synapses because Yagyuu's head drew a complete blank. He didn't know what to say.

"You know, maybe we can even pull a trick or two. Wouldn't be as easy as it was, but still doable." Dark grey eyes held a glint of amusement as if Niou was already envisioning the stunt they could do at the wedding - who's the real groom? Their old friends, even Sanada, would all laugh, and what a shock for everyone else!

"That's madness." Yagyuu said, a whisper between his lips. He wasn't going to do any of that. It was a bit of fun Niou wanted, to exchange their lives for a day or two, but not now, this was serious, an important step in Yagyuu's life that he could not afford to mess up. Why did Niou even suggest that anyway? Given what had happened the night before, did Niou really not care that he was getting married?

Yagyuu was only getting more questions, not answers.

"What, you don't trust me with the rings?" A somewhat scornful smirk found its way to Niou's lips. "Scared that I'd toss them out the window?"

What do you actually want with me? "Do you want to, Niou?"

An eyebrow arched and disappeared under Niou's white hair. "Do I want to what?" He smirked again, but Yagyuu knew that smirk meant nothing. "Go to your wedding? Not particularly. _You_ want me to and that'll come at a price."

Yagyuu's jaw tightened fractionally. "Because you're not my friend?"

"Pin-pong! That is the correct answer!" Niou said, imitating the game show that was on TV. "Unfortunately you don't get any prizes."

Another minute of silence followed; Yagyuu didn't know what to say. He watched Niou play with the tips of his newly bleached hair and that feeling came again, like he was standing in the hallway trying to remember why he got out of bed in the first place.

The conversation didn't end, it just drifted off like Yagyuu's thoughts had. It seemed that Niou didn't expect things to get further than this either. Pushing himself off the sofa he stretched, eyes screwed shut for a brief second. "You've got an extra blanket and stuff?"

Yagyuu shook his head. He didn't. "It's only nine o'clock."

"Ask Rebecca what time it is in Oz."

Yagyuu followed Niou until the man went to the bathroom. But he didn't shut the door, only crouched down next to his backpack and unzipped its lower compartment. It took Yagyuu a moment to realise what Niou was pulling out was a sleeping bag.

No way was anyone, a wanted guest or not, going to use a sleeping bag at his home. "You can use my bed."

Niou unzipped the bag down the center so that it became a large flat piece, then he shook out the dark blue material. Turning away he sat down to undo the laces on his boots, which he didn't take off when he entered the apartment. White hair bounced, as if weightless, with each movement. Yagyuu stared at it and felt something tickle at the back of his mind.

"Niou, use my bed."

"I'd rather not." The man pulled off his boots and then his socks. "Unless if that's an invitation."

Niou cast one quick, sharp glance at Yagyuu, and Yagyuu shuddered.

 

They pushed and dragged each other towards the bedroom, stopping on their way to get lubricant from Niou's backpack.

Before this, Yagyuu could never understand how someone can cheat on his partner. But as Niou meshed their bodies together and frantic hands stripped each other of their clothing, he understood. Lust could overwhelm many things, including common sense and personal ethics. By the time Niou shoved him down to the bed, Yagyuu didn't even remember he had a fiancée.

The main light was off but enough moonlight crept in between gaps of the curtains to allow Yagyuu to see clearly, even after his glasses were plucked off his face. Arms on either side of Yagyuu to keep his weight off the man, Niou hovered just inches above, a predatory gleam in his eyes. Wide-opened eyes were seeing him.

Something snapped and that moment was broken. They were all over each other again, each trying to get all of the other, although Yagyuu didn't know what that "all" was, he just knew he wanted Niou, and more Niou. Hands searched, lips kissed, teeth grazed, fingernails scratched angry red trails and they were both beyond ready.

Niou knew where Yagyuu put the condoms, probably because he searched the place for the keys that morning. Yagyuu lay there, catching his breath and waiting and not caring that he hadn't done this before, too aroused to panic. He wouldn't even care if doing this would kill him. But when Niou took the condom out of its packet he rolled it on Yagyuu and flipped them over.

Niou spread his legs, bent his knees and pressed the tube of lubricant in Yagyuu's hand. The message was clear enough.

It was then that everything began to feel surreal. The cold gel and hot skin and that - _oh God, OH GOD_ \- incredible heat when Niou guided him inside. Pushing himself all the way into Niou - _ahhhh_ \- with one stroke. The way Niou's face changed, came alive with emotions Yagyuu had never seen before - _Niou, I_ -

He rested his elbows on either side of Niou's head, his fingers gripped the white hair, he buried his face in the crook of Niou's neck and he moved. Niou rocked with him, fast and uninhibited and desperate.

When Yagyuu opened his eyes, there was a moment of complete disorientation as if he had woken up after a rest long denied from him.

Everything was still dark, but it wasn't because he had buried his face in the crook of Niou's neck. It was because the lights were off. There were no hands clutching at his shoulders, no sweating body moving with him, no Niou.

Yagyuu lay there breathing through his mouth, his mind blank with shock. He didn't need to check; he knew he was hard. Wasn't he too old for this sort of dreams? And all this most probably just because...

He pushed the makeshift blanket - Niou's sleeping bag - away from him. It wasn't exactly cold with the heating turned on and his sanity would stand a better chance if he couldn't smell Niou as he slept. Turning on his side on the sofa, he willed for sleep to come again.

He didn't move when he heard Niou come out of the bedroom. He heard the tap being turned on in the kitchen. The man was probably just getting a drink.

Soft sounds of feet on wooden floor neared Yagyuu later, stopping just beside the sofa. Turned away, Yagyuu kept his eyes shut, not wanting to see the man who was in his dreams just moments ago, nor let Niou notice the hard flesh between his legs, barely concealed by the material of his pyjamas.

He couldn't tell how much time had passed before Niou finally moved away, picking up something before moving back to the kitchen. It didn't take Yagyuu long to figure out Niou was making a phonecall.

"No." A pause. "It's me."

"I... what happened... never mind. Do you want me to..."

"It's fine... It's a cold bed... Yours is much warmer..."

"Half an hour."

Within the next few minutes, Niou was out of the apartment, seeking that warmer bed.

Yagyuu picked the makeshift blanket off the floor, wrapped it around himself and went back to sleep.

 

He woke the next morning with a stiff back to the sound of the front door. Drinking coffee from a large paper cup, Niou pushed the door open with his free hand and eyes searched for Yagyuu immediately. "Morning." Niou smirked above the brim of his cup, then lifted it towards Yagyuu's direction. "Would you like some coffee, sir?"

Yagyuu's watch told him it was 7:30am. He shouldn't wake so early on a Sunday morning. "Good morning, Niou-kun." He replied, the words sounding the same as they did when he said them everyday during high school. Cursing his back silently as he got up, but still glad that he insisted Niou not use the sofa even though the man didn't really use the bed either, he went to the bathroom for his morning routine and a shower to clear his head.

Shower done, Yagyuu studied his reflection in the mirror as he dried his hair.

Without his glasses, he did look a lot like Niou. His eyes were slightly smaller, but the shape of his face and jaw, his nose and eyebrows... he and Niou did look alike to a certain extent. And with Niou's eye-catching hair, all that most people noticed was the hair and it made it so easy to fool everyone.

Yagyuu's own hair hadn't changed much. It had shorter layers near the top now in a more fashionable cut, but he could still...

What was he doing?

Holding back a scowl he smoothed his hair back into place and dried it that way. His back complained again when he raised his arms and he made a note to never allow anyone to sleep on that sofa in the future. But the next moment he found Niou curled up at one end of the sofa, eyes closed, every inch of his body showing a weariness Yagyuu didn't notice a while ago, having just woken up.

"I'm not the one who needs coffee, Niou." If there was a warmer bed out there, why did Niou come back? Why was he so tired, how many times did he - Yagyuu banished that thought. It was because of his dream last night and he really didn't need to recall that this moment.

In fact, he didn't need those dreams or any more of those encounters to confuse him. But what could he do?

"Niou," He sat himself down on the armrest on the other side of the sofa. "do you plan to stay in Japan permanently?"

Niou took a peek at Yagyuu under his fine curtain of white hair, then closed his eyes again. "Why?"

"Have you thought about going home?" Yagyuu asked, trying not to sound as though he was telling Niou to leave. After the last two days Niou should know he didn't want to chase him away, right?

Niou didn't reply for a long time, but when he did it was once again in the form of a question. "You think I should?"

Something in Niou's tone made Yagyuu pause. Niou sounded a little subdued. Not a good sign. "If you're staying in Japan for good, you'll need a job and a home to go back to at the end of the day." And this wasn't the place. If Niou had been here, if he hadn't walked out, then perhaps things could be different. If.

"I get by not having a home the last twenty years of my life."

That didn't sound like Niou. "Is 'get by' all that you want, Niou-kun?" Yagyuu resisted the urge to walk over to check if Niou was all right. "What have you come back for?"

When Niou lifted his head and opened his eyes, his gaze was tired but still sharp. "For your goddamn wedding." He said, and a smirk danced across his lips.

It didn't make sense. Yagyuu's eyes held that gaze as his mind tried to work all this out. It would always be a mistake to take Niou's words at face-value. For his wedding? That wasn't what Niou had said last night. But if - _if_ \- Niou had come back for him, then it didn't make sense either. The man didn't seem to mind Rebecca and there was that phone conversation last night before he left the apartment.

Yagyuu frowned when the phone began to ring. As if finding the entire situation comical, Niou chuckled before sinking further into the sofa, turning away once again.

Half a minute after taking the call, Yagyuu was rushing out the door. "Don't sleep there. Use my bed." He said as he threw on a coat. Niou mumbled something he didn't hear as he shut the door behind him.

 

Yagyuu wasn't one to normally let things get the better of him. He believed in taking things one at a time; if several bad events happened on the same day, he would consider them as individual events rather than let himself think the world was against him. But having to think about Niou, suffer a terribly painful back and stare at the raided laboratory on the same day was proving to be a bit too much.

The apparatus was worth much money, but that didn't matter too much as it wasn't Yagyuu's money and they were covered by insurance. But the research project he had been working on for the last three years...

Granted, he had most of his data backed up ever since that fire-scare about a month ago, but a lot of work had been done since then and the entire experiment set-up was gone. It would take time to rebuild it all. Yagyuu believed it was justified for him to want to smash something into pieces.

By the time he had been interviewed by the police, put together with his colleagues a list of everything they had lost and salvaged all the experiments and data they could, it was already completely dark outside. When he tried to call Rebecca to suggest a dinner out because he needed the relaxation, and realised he had left his phone at home in his hurry to the lab, he decided it was a sign that he should just go home.

This year's December seemed particularly cold, but it might be because his coat wasn't quite enough for the night, and the wind was making it feel colder than it actually was. Despite that, Yagyuu chose to walk. The journey wasn't going to take more than half an hour and he wanted the time to think about what he should do.

Niou seemed to be quieter, even a bit dejected earlier today. Perhaps something had happened last night which wasn't what he guessed it was initially. But that aside, this could be the opportunity to get Niou to talk. Niou had only been back for two days and they had already... Yagyuu simply couldn't let this carry on. It was unfair to his fiancée, Niou had to know that. And Niou had to know Yagyuu wasn't someone who would let this kind of thing happen.

But it already had happened, a voice in his mind told him. Niou had sucked him off and he had touched him and dreamt of having sex with him. Everything had already got out of hand and Yagyuu had already become someone he himself despised.

Never mind his doubts and the feeling of having forgotten something important. He would ask Niou all the questions he had tonight and he would make Niou answer every single one of them. He would grab Niou and shake the answer out of the man if needed. If feelings were going to be bruised then so be it; Yagyuu had had his fair share of hurt when Niou vanished seven years ago. Niou owed him an answer.

He entered the apartment building, took the lift up and opened the door to his home, prepared for a night of deadly sharp glares and barbed, heart-ripping words.

But not for what he would find.

 

Side N

If Yagyuu was pretending then he was doing a very good job. Not that Niou didn't know Yagyuu was good at acting; they had swapped lives for a while after all. But that blank look was so fucking blank Niou could actually believe it reflected the state of Yagyuu's mind. Yagyuu couldn't remember what Niou considered to be a very important element of their relationship.

Fine, it had been something from twelve, thirteen years ago. But still. Thirteen years ago Yagyuu promised to go to his birthday party and Niou promised to keep his hair white. Yagyuu's white hedgehog, Yagyuu's fantasy, Yagyuu's escape from sanity. Niou would be the one to take them down the rabbit hole, into Wonderland. This had been their fairy tale until Yagyuu decided he no longer needed it and hung Niou out to dry.

And now Yagyuu said they were friends of thirteen years, and he thought Niou would congratulate him as a friend. What a joke.

"So, you're getting married." Niou's voice was without bitterness or anger. He had perfected this art long ago and dipped into it whenever he liked. "If I congratulate you like a friend, what do I get out of it?"

He reached for the remote and switched off the annoying TV. "Do you want me at your wedding? Who's your bestman? Yukimura? Talk him into handing the job over. Trust me with the rings and all that shit or I won't be there at all."

Niou didn't know why he said that. Well he did. He was being cynical. He wanted to be able to just step away and watch Yagyuu finally get what he needed through marriage, because apparently Niou didn't have it in him. But he didn't think he would be able to do that in reality. Yagyuu had had too much influence on his life. In a sense, he was Yagyuu, the part that the other man had to reject in his own life. To watch Yagyuu go with someone else was to watch a limb being amputated off himself. No matter how doped up, no matter how much time had passed since the end of their fairy tale, Niou thought he would still scream if he had to watch that happen. It wasn't a matter of strength but a matter of what was supposed to be his.

The other man was still staring at him blankly.

"You know, maybe we can even pull a trick or two. Wouldn't be as easy as it was, but still doable." Niou narrowed his eyes and allowed himself to smirk.

"This is madness." Yagyuu finally whispered.

"What, you don't trust me with the rings? Scared that I'd toss them out the window?"

"Do you want to, Niou?"

Throw away the rings? Yes. "Do I want to what?" He lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "Go to your wedding? Not particularly. _You_ want me to and that'll come at a price." Like everything always does.

Light reflected off Yagyuu's glasses, but Niou imagined those eyes would narrow. "Because you're not my friend?"

"Pin-pong! That is the correct answer!" Niou said, imitating the game show that was on TV. "Unfortunately you don't get any prizes."

Niou's idle fingers pushed into his hair and fluffed it up. It felt strange. The bleach was harsh and his scalp was still recovering from it. But what the fuck, he promised to have his hair like this as long as Yagyuu came to his birthday party. And last night had been good. It was fucking great.

He wanted more. He deserved more. He wanted to grab the man near him, fuck his brains out and tell the world Yagyuu Hiroshi belonged to him.

But he had already tried that last night and knew it wasn't going to work. So instead he stood up and started to get ready to sleep.

He laughed at the irony when he lay down on Yagyuu's bed, alone. He couldn't help but suggest sex when Yagyuu offered his bed, but if Yagyuu wanted to keep doing that gentleman thing and let his guest use the bed or whatever, fine. If he felt better that way.

But why the hell was he sleeping alone in Yagyuu's bed?

Niou had already discovered how comfortable the bed was that morning when he woke with a headache on the sofa, in Yagyuu's arms, and chose to sleep in the bed minutes later. But despite the soft sheets and plush pillows - Yagyuu still only used one pillow whereas Niou needed two - sleep eluded him. The bed was cold. He was there only because Yagyuu felt obliged to make his guest feel comfortable.

Shit. Sentimentality was so not his style.

He threw back the blankets and got off the bed to get a drink from the kitchen.

Yagyuu was asleep on the sofa, the sleeping bag kicked away on the floor. The sight was strange. Niou never imagined Yagyuu kicking his blankets in sleep. But even though he had lost count of the number of times he had slept in Yagyuu's bed in the past, they had never been on a bed together. He had never seen Yagyuu sleep.

Niou stood and watched until he felt stupid doing it.

What was it that Yukimura said? That Yagyuu hadn't even once mentioned him in the years since he left. Did it really mean what Yukimura said it did, that Yagyuu guarded those emotions very close to heart, or may be those emotions didn't even exist to start with?

Niou rolled his eyes at himself and turned on his heels. Sometimes his own brooding annoyed himself. But speaking of Yukimura... Niou took a moment to decide if he should call to check. He should. If the call got cut off or if nobody answered, he would take the hint.

He took the phone to the kitchen and dialled Yukimura's mobile number, hoping it wouldn't be picked up which should mean good news. But it was answered on the first ring.

"Renji?"

"No," Niou's heart sank. "it's me."

After a moment of shocked silence, Yukimura chuckled sadly. "I left a message on Renji's phone and thought he was calling back." He said, his voice even softer than usual. Niou listened to the background noises. He couldn't tell where Yukimura was.

"What is it, Niou?"

"I'm worried about you." Dammit, how come he could say it so easily to Yukimura but never to Yagyuu? "What happened?" Yukimura had called Yanagi. Something had to have gone wrong.

The man on the other side chuckled once again but there was a distinctive hitch in the voice. It wasn't something to be discussed over the phone. "Never mind. Do you want me to come over?"

"Are you at Yagyuu's place? Don't worry about me, I'm on my way home."

"I am, but it's fine. It's a cold bed I'm sleeping in. Yours is much warmer." At least Niou would feel welcomed. "Go home. I'll see you in half an hour."

 

Yukimura left another message on Yanagi's phone telling him everything was okay and there was no need for him to call back. Nonetheless the phone rang when he and Niou were drinking tea, and Yukimura had to reassure Yanagi that he really was all right.

Niou thought Yanagi may be a better choice for his former captain. He bet Yukimura knew that as well. But sometimes it just wasn't up to them to choose.

He decided against asking what had happened since he doubted he could offer any solution to Yukimura anyway; Yukimura would tell what he wanted to tell. He poured the man another cup of tea to help warm him up, but he was starting to wonder if the man was shivering because it had been cold outside or because of something else.

The studio apartment was quiet although Niou could hear the boiler working hard in the background, doing its best to warm Yukimura as well. It seemed to be a losing battle. Niou looked away when Yukimura set his cup down, bowed his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose with fingertips. Perhaps Yanagi would have provided better comfort to Yukimura, but ultimately that wasn't what Yukimura needed.

He bit back a self-depreciating smirk; it wasn't as if he was doing much better himself yet there he was, judging what Yukimura really needed.

He asked if Yukimura had eaten yet and as expected, Yukimura said no. Pushing himself off the sofa-bed Niou padded to the small open-plan kitchen and began to throw something together. After a while Yukimura appeared behind him.

Just as Niou had discovered over the years, the kitchen was a good place to talk. There were enough distractions, ways to end an unwanted conversation, and enough items to fidget with. And it wouldn't be rude to not look at each other because it only made sense to stare at the cooking.

"I don't know why I feel as though I'm doing something wrong." A pause. "I don't know why I got scared and ran away when I saw Akaya..."

Niou kept his eyes on the cooking and didn't look up. He couldn't understand Kirihara's involvement in all this, but he kept his questions down. It wasn't any of his business.

"You know Sanada loves Akaya more than anything."

Niou didn't. He knew Sanada cared because he had felt something beside anger every time he saw Sanada struck out at Kirihara, which he didn't feel when his own father hit him, the few times the man actually bothered to. Which wasn't that big a deal, children get punished by parents for doing something wrong, and Kirihara got punished by Sanada when he didn't meet the vice-captain's standards. Sanada had high expectations for Kirihara.

Yukimura continued. "After you left, and after the exams were over, Sanada and I wanted the team members to try for the Junior Selection team... and Akaya refused. He wanted to go on holiday with his girlfriend instead."

Niou drew a sharp breath as his brain brought forward a suggestion on how Sanada might have reacted. They were no longer adolescents then. Kirihara wouldn't just stand there and take a beating. "...How bad was it?"

"He grabbed a chair in the club room and swung it at Akaya's head."

Kirihara had fallen to the floor after the blow, unconscious and bleeding badly with the head wound. The wound itself was treated without problems; it wasn't large and only bled a lot because that was the way head wounds were, with the high blood pressure from the head. But he stayed in the hospital for several days because of a concussion.

"We were all there... I tried to calm Sanada whilst Jackal held Akaya back. But it didn't work and... there was a lot of blood."

When the police went to the hospital they didn't find a case of bodily assault, just a young man who had tripped on his own shoelaces and fell, knocking his head on a chair. "But maybe if Akaya hadn't said that... if he had told the truth, Sanada may be happier now - at least he would have paid for what he had done."

It was as if all his guilt of hitting Kirihara over the years - and Yukimura knew how Sanada felt about it, even though emotions often took over control and his arm would lash out even before he realised - had cumulated and finally reached its peak as he realised how much influence he had had in Kirihara's life and how much trauma he had put the boy through over the years. Sanada changed. He became more reclusive than ever, and the light was gone from his eyes, replaced by a numbness in his gaze.

"You know what a single-minded man he is. He probably still can't get over the incident... even when Akaya visited him when he lost his leg, I don't think he had looked Akaya in the eye at all."

He broke all contacts with Kirihara. As far as Yukimura knew, Sanada and Kirihara never met again, apart from that time in the hospital.

And yet, when Yukimura arrived at Sanada's home earlier in the day, and let himself in with the spare keys, he found Kirihara there. The two had stopped and looked at him, and he felt like he had barged into the middle of a conversation, a conversation that actually brought emotions other than sadness and hatred to Sanada's face.

Something that, no matter how hard Yukimura tried over the years, never accomplished.

Niou was beginning to understand. He knew why Yukimura ran - jealousy could consume all reason.

"Can it be wrong to want someone?" Yukimura's voice dropped, turned colder, tinged with a hint of sadness. "Is it wrong to want to destroy everything that someone has just so that he would have nothing and no one else to turn to?"

Niou turned the hob off and poured the noodles into a bowl, slowly and carefully to avoid spilling the soup. "Does it matter if it's wrong?" He didn't think Yukimura would really have hurt Kirihara even if he had the chance.

Yukimura froze, and then he was bending forward and chuckling. "So typical of you to say that."

Niou gestured for his friend to sit down, and put the food in front of him. "Niou Masaharu, at your service."

 

The morning was colder than the previous night. Niou had his warmest jacket on, the one that got him through winter in Northern Europe, but nothing could prevent him from wanting to fall asleep standing up, having barely slept the night before to keep Yukimura company. Having finished the _Lucozade Sport_ he got from a store near the JR on Yukimura's end, he got a coffee once he emerged on Yagyuu's end just so that he could last that short walk from the station to Yagyuu's apartment building.

The sofa was obviously not the most comfortable place Yagyuu had ever slept in, Niou could tell just by the way Yagyuu sat up when he entered the apartment. Not that Niou was feeling that great himself. As soon as the other man left for his shower, he curled up on the warm spot Yagyuu left behind and let sleep take over, waking when Yagyuu returned, showered and dressed comfortably for home. The smell of leather and the sight of Yagyuu looking as though he radiated warmth made Niou remember what they had done on his birthday, how he sank himself into Yagyuu's arms and went to sleep on the same piece of furniture they were sitting on right now. Wouldn't it be great if everyday was his birthday.

"Niou, do you plan to stay in Japan permanently?"

He really didn't want this type of conversation when his brain was about to shut down. He just wasn't built to go without sleep. "Why?" Answer the question with one of your own and you'll never need to give anything away or even use your mind.

"Have you thought about going home?"

"You think I should?"

To see his siblings? Perhaps. To stay? No. Yagyuu of all people should know what being Niou felt like. There was just so much invisibility one person could stand. On his journey Niou was someone nameless but at least he had a choice. Right now he was as much at home as he could be. Although he felt that Yagyuu was going to deny him of this soon.

"If you're staying in Japan for good, you'll need a job and a home to go back to at the end of the day."

See?

"I get by not having a home the last twenty years of my life." Don't you fucking let go of me, Yagyuu. Don't you dare do it again.

"Is 'get by' all that you want, Niou-kun? What have you come back for?"

"For your goddamn wedding." Obvious enough. Perhaps wanting someone could be wrong. But had Niou ever done anything right anyway?

Niou chuckled out loud when the phone rang that instant, just like some crap TV drama in which the conversation would always be interrupted when things got intense. Turning away on his end of the sofa, he rested his head once again on the arm-rest and closed his eyes. Moments later he heard Yagyuu practically running out of the apartment, but still stopping long enough to tell Niou to use the bed instead.

"Whatever." Niou murmured just as the door closed, reached for the sleeping bag nearby and gave up his fight to stay awake.

The sky was patches of blood red and orange, lit by the setting sun, when Niou opened his eyes again. Shielding them with one hand he scooted away from that spot on the sofa but in the end decided to get up to tend to his empty stomach. Yagyuu was still out and judging by the way he left, Niou didn't expect for them to have dinner together that night.

He found Yagyuu's camera phone on a table. Curious, he picked it up but didn't find any photos inside. Boring. But it rang the moment he put it down, and he looked at the screen, smirked and decided to take the call.

 

Would it be good to meet up so that Niou could tell her Yagyuu's high school stories? Sure. Could he show her what their school tie looked like? Hmm okay, he did have it in a box in the bottom of his backpack. How about tying her to Yagyuu's bed with it and fucking her senseless? That's a brilliant idea.

Niou didn't know how showing her things from high school - and he even took out his box of mementos which he hadn't touched all these years - turned into sex, but at least he finally knew what Yukimura didn't like about Rebecca.

Well, she started it first, and what's Yagyuu's was his, right?

Slamming himself into the welcoming body beneath his, Niou kept his eyes shut and thought of Yagyuu.

Yes, it could be wrong to want someone. Yes, it was wrong to want to destroy everything that someone had just so that he would have no one else to turn to.

His hand on either side of her head, he effectively covered her ears as he bent down to kiss her, his hips never slowing down even when he heard the front door being opened.

Niou never gave a shit about being wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

Side Y

The lights were on when Yagyuu stepped into the apartment, but there was nobody in the hall. Niou was clearly not doing his part for the Kyoto Protocol. But as he bent down to take off his shoes, it wasn't the light that made Yagyuu frown.

There were voices coming from his bedroom, faint but still audible. He listened as he slid each shoe off his feet, a hand pushed against the door for support. He wouldn't be so dumb as to not recognise what those voices - well, they were more like noises - meant.

Yagyuu did have a TV in his room, and he did tell Niou to use his bed, but it didn't mean he gave permission for Niou to watch porn from his bed. Still, he could already see the motivation behind this. The frustration and anger which had built up inside since the afternoon threatened to overboil but he kept a cap on it the best he could, concentrating on the feeling of his teeth closing on the inside of his lip instead. They were going to be civilised and talk things through and be honest with each other. He had had a bad enough day already there was no need to make it worse.

He ignored the feeling of unease as he walked towards his own room. The voices were too real, too familiar.

He stood in the open doorway for a moment.

Something snapped in his head, the sound as clear as a dry twig under foot. Rational thoughts, coherency, control, everything left him at that instant. He heard himself cry out as he dashed towards the pair on his bed and pushed, shoved, forcing Niou off Rebecca. The man rolled onto his back on the unoccupied side of the bed and Yagyuu leapt forward, cracking his knuckles on Niou's jaw. In the background Rebecca began to scream.

Catching another fist before the blow knocked his right eyeball out, Niou squeezed the wrist and yanked it away from him as he tried to get up, but another blow to his stomach knocked the breath out of him. Coughing, he brought a leg up and used it to push Yagyuu away from him. The glasses fell from his nose as Yagyuu tumbled from the bed onto the floor. There was a loud bang when he rammed his head onto the frame of his bed and for a moment he knew nothing but the pain in his skull.

When his eyes came to focus again, Niou was standing before him, as naked as the day he was born, wearing only Yagyuu's glasses. Blood trickled down from a broken lip as he smirked, and the voice that came from his lips was not his own normal one, but one that sounded exactly like Yagyuu. "And I was going to ask if you want to join us, Niou-kun."

The pain in his head didn't allow Yagyuu to stand up, but blind with rage, he tried to lunge forward anyway but Niou simply stepped back. "NIOU!" His own voice deafened him. "YOU FUCK ANYTHING THAT STANDS ON TWO LEGS DON'T YOU!"

No answer came from Niou, who plucked the glasses off his nose and carefully folded its arms, his dark gaze darting towards the sobbing woman on the bed.

Rebecca was trying frantically to free herself. Grabbing hold of the bed to heave himself up, still disorientated from the fall, Yagyuu reached forward and pulled at the tie until the knot came loose.

Crying uncontrollably, Rebecca sat up and rubbed her wrists, then brought the blankets around herself. But nothing could hide what she had done. Eyes wide like a frightened child and fixed on the man now sprawled on the bed, a hand clutching his head, she stammered as she tried to explain. "Hiroshi I... I..."

"Get out." Yagyuu cut her short.

"Hiroshi please - "

"Get out before I change my mind." Still holding the tie in his fist, he slammed it down on the mattress. A show of how much he was trying to control himself.

The world was one painful and blinding white light that stabbed Yagyuu's eyes mercilessly. He pushed himself to sit up at the edge of the bed, eyes tightly shut as clothes rustled behind him. What felt like an eternity later, the front door opened and closed.

Niou was still there. Yagyuu buried his face in his hands.

"Get out." Of my life.

Niou didn't take half as long as Rebecca to leave.

It was only when the front door shut for the second time that Yagyuu finally looked up again. The first thing he saw was the tie that had bound Rebecca to the bed, which he was still clutching in his hand.

The Rikkai school tie.

 

Waking up on the sofa next morning, Yagyuu received a call from work saying the lab was going to stay closed for the next few days. Several minutes later the phone rang again, and he unplugged it from the wall as soon as he heard Rebecca's voice. Then his mobile pinged with a text message from Rebecca, which he deleted before reading. Then he switched the phone off.

The house was silent again. No ringing phones, no pleading voices, no slamming of naked bodies.

The lump in the back of his head throbbed, as if trying to override all emotional pains, and it worked to a certain extent. Yagyuu couldn't feel anything but that pain when he eventually walked to his bed and stripped it, putting sheets, pillows and blanket into garbage bags. He found his glasses on the windowsill and bagged them as well. The backpack Niou had left behind couldn't fit into a bag, so he just dragged it to the front door with everything else for throwing out when he had that energy.

He curled up on the sofa and closed his eyes again.

 

The corner Yukimura had chosen was dark, and it was separated from the rest of the coffee house by a small flowerbed. A strange choice, as if the friend already knew Yagyuu would want the privacy. Then again, he had called Yukimura in the early evening asking if they could meet up right away and that was probably enough to tell the man they would want somewhere quite private.

There were already snacks and drinks waiting for Yagyuu when he sat down, but he had no appetite at all. Opposite him, Yukimura folded his arms on the table and gave a smile that looked a bit frayed around the edges. He shook his head when Yagyuu looked at him with concern. "Essay deadline this morning." He explained simply. "But friends always come before sleep. Now talk, Yagyuu."

Yagyuu swallowed. Yukimura never was one to dance around a topic, but that was a bit too direct. He had wanted company, but hadn't thought about how to explain what had happened, or imagined that Yukimura would actually ask - order, even - him to talk about it. He held the cup of tea and felt his hands being warmed up as he tried to sort out his thoughts.

"Is this about Niou?" Despite the tone, what Yukimura said was hardly a question.

Yagyuu's gaze snapped up, the question in his eyes clear even in the dimness of the coffee house: how do you know?

A shrug. "I've spoken to him." Yukimura looked Yagyuu in the eye. "I told him to come back."

That answer only brought more questions. "He kept in contact with you all these years?"

"Renji's website." Then Yukimura answered the next question that was already on Yagyuu's lips. "I didn't tell you because you never asked." Dark eyes softened a little. The man looked down as if not wanting to see the look of shock on Yagyuu's face. "And because he left for a reason."

But that implied Niou left because of him. Yagyuu was about to speak, but Yukimura cut him off.

"We'll talk about that after you tell me what happened."

Yagyuu closed his eyes, feeling exposed without his glasses, and took a deep breath. Yukimura could be as stubborn as Sanada. If he said he would tell him later then he wasn't going to find out one second earlier.

Besides, why Niou left no longer mattered.

"I found him and Rebecca together last night." That ache inside Yagyuu made him feel dizzy. "On my bed."

It was as if Yukimura had seen this coming. He sighed, focusing his gaze on his cup of tea instead as he stirred it idly with a teaspoon. "So what did you do?"

"Told them to leave. I should probably listen to what Rebecca has to say but... not right now."

"And Niou?"

What did Yukimura mean, 'and Niou'? "He had sex with my fiancée. What do you expect me to do?"

"If it was sex, it means both sides were willing participants."

Yukimura was defending Niou. Taking a moment to control his anger and reasoning that of course Yukimura would first defend closer friends, Yagyuu kept his voice low. "Niou tried it with me." He knew he wasn't without guilt himself, but still. "He probably seduced Rebecca and she just made a wrong choice. It didn't mean anything to him. He would fuck anything that stands on two legs."

The hand holding the teaspoon stopped. Yukimura looked up from his drink, eyes wide as if horrified. "Did you say that to him?"

Yagyuu didn't reply. So what if he did, it was only the truth.

The silence was answer enough. Yukimura narrowed his eyes, set his spoon on the saucer and stood up. Yagyuu watched him take his coat from a peg nearby and suddenly realised his friend was leaving.

"Yukimura?" He stood as well when Yukimura stopped to pull out some money and left it on the small table to pay for the meal.

"About a month ago, you asked me to go with Rebecca to watch a play because there was a fire at your lab and you couldn't go." Each word Yukimura spoke was clipped. He wasn't angry; he was furious. "I saw her home afterwards. She invited me in and tried to get my clothes off."

Yagyuu just stared, his jaw dropping, the composure he prided himself in evaporating in an instant. "And you didn't tell me?"

"How? 'Your fiancée wanted to sleep with me', like that?" It was as if a layer of ice had glazed over Yukimura's face. There was ice in his eyes, ice in his voice. "When something like that happens, both sides are at fault. The question is, should you be angry at Niou for having fucked Rebecca, or at Rebecca for having fucked Niou? Who matters to you more, the woman who let another man fuck her in your bed, or the man who could only have you by becoming you?"

Silence.

In his bed. With his fiancée. Taking his glasses. Talking as if he was him.

Yagyuu looked away. Yukimura turned to go.

"Yukimura... why did he leave?"

Yukimura stopped only long enough to answer that whispered question.

"He came to find me on the night of his birthday telling me he was leaving, but he never gave a reason. Although," The man paused, pushed hands into coat pockets as if he felt cold, then continued. "there can't be that many reasons for a person to leave everything behind. Think, Yagyuu."

 

Who mattered more?

Yagyuu felt no love for Rebecca anymore. Very politely, he asked Rebecca to leave the apartment building when he came home to find her waiting outside his door. She tried to explain, but Yagyuu couldn't even force himself to accept those explanations, not after what Yukimura had revealed. But it wasn't about forgiveness - Yagyuu had been seduced by Niou as well, only he got away with it - it was just that he knew there was no love between them.

He refused to let Rebecca inside, choosing to talk in the elevator hall. An hour later they both accepted what was best for them and Yagyuu watched her leave, feeling a strange emptiness in his heart. He was surprised that he could be as calm as this. Only around a month ago he had proposed to this woman and now that the relationship had fallen apart, he could only feel guilty for hardly being affected at all.

The realisation of the truth felt ridiculous: there never was a strong desire to get married in the first place. He proposed only because that was the next step in life - the norm that Niou had always tried to divert him from years ago, to "save him from being driven insane by sanity", as Niou used to say. Yagyuu did love Rebecca but only up until the moment Niou appeared at the end of the footbridge and walked towards him with a careless stroll, three days ago.

But did it mean Niou mattered more? He couldn't even say if he liked the man or not, after all that had happened. Back in high school yes, he had liked him, wanted him, and got frustrated when Niou played around with the girls in school or worse still, when they came to Yagyuu when he was dressed as Niou, and suggested the labs were empty and they could do a few 'experiments' there. One time Yagyuu just agreed and took the girl from next class to an empty classroom - Niou's classroom, reached into her skirt, pushed aside underwear and put fingers in her whilst her hand grasped his cock in his opened pants. It was the first time Yagyuu had done anything sexual with anyone and it was with one of Niou's girlfriends.

Looking back, Niou had probably deliberately arranged the whole thing, the way that girl said Niou had hinted for it at lunch time said as much. But Niou hadn't spoken to him for days afterwards.

Niou couldn't still be holding a grudge. He couldn't have had sex with Rebecca because of this, could he? Niou did it last night to get to him, but Yagyuu's gut instinct told him it wasn't because of this.

Niou had arranged it back then to get to Yagyuu and Yagyuu turned it around to hurt him. The plan backfired.

Yagyuu cursed under his breath. The bump in his head complained painfully as he leaned back into the sofa but he ignored it. Why had it taken him so many years to decipher what Niou really meant back then?

But that had happened almost two years before, it couldn't be why Niou left. If what Yukimura had implied was true... what could it be that he had done that drove Niou to such a decision?

There couldn't be many reasons for someone to leave everything behind.

He couldn't tell if the ache in his head was from the bump or from trying to remember what he probably didn't notice in the first place. Why should he try so hard to understand anyway? It was over. Whether Yagyuu wanted to or not - he really couldn't be sure - Niou was once again out of his life

Leaning forward again, Yagyuu rested his forehead on his knees. Dammit. Now that he knew what it was Niou wanted, he didn't know what he wanted for himself. But it was already over.

He looked up wearily and pulled out the phone from his pocket when it rang. Yukimura. After the way the man had left back in the coffee house, Yagyuu didn't expect the man would talk to him again so soon. He swallowed his surprise and answered.

"Yes?"

"Is Niou at your place?" Yukimura sounded doubtful; the possibility was too small.

"No." Why would he be? "What's the problem?"

"He didn't call me after leaving your place last night, and still hasn't called me now. I'm worried about him. I don't think he's got any friends here that he'd stay with."

Yagyuu rubbed his forehead a little. "Perhaps he's staying at a hostel."

Yukimura sighed as if he just heard something ridiculous. "He doesn't have any money for that."

That didn't sound good. Yagyuu hadn't thought about it. "Maybe he's gone home?"

For a while Yukimura said nothing. The sound of passing cars from the phone was the only hint that told Yagyuu the phone hadn't been cut off.

"What home?" Yukimura whispered finally, his soft voice nearly drowned out by the noises of the streets. "The moment you closed your door in his face last night, he no longer has a home."

What the... "He'll be fine, Yukimura. He's been out on his own so many years he knows how to take care of himself. There's no need to worry."

The silence that followed then, despite the background noises, made Yagyuu wonder if something had happened on the other side or if Yukimura's voice was completely lost to the noise of traffic. But when Yukimura spoke again, almost a minute later, his voice was very clear.

"Two things, Yagyuu. Even though it's not really my place to say any of this. First, why do you think Niou was out on his own for so many years in the first place and second," The sound of a deep breath came through the phone. "if you think coming home to give a second chance to the man you love, be pushed out of that man's life for a second time, and then sleep out in the cold is a 'fine' thing to happen - "

Yagyuu didn't understand. The words made sense but it felt as though Yukimura was talking about someone else entirely. "Yukimura - "

Sirens raced past on Yukimura's side, the sharp shrill making both men stop.

"I've made a mistake. I shouldn't have asked him to come back." Yukimura said, his tone full of regret and resignation. "Call me if you hear from him."

The call ended. There were no dramatic sounds of a cut-off call, just a dead silence from Yagyuu's mobile that told him Yukimura didn't want to talk anymore. He put the gadget down and rested his head on his knees once again.

What was Yukimura talking about? Home? Love? Pushing Niou out of his life? It was Niou who walked out of Yagyuu's life, Yagyuu had never pushed him out.

Right?

 

Side N

One more chance for Yagyuu. One more chance for him to choose.

Did he want back the monster he had created, his tour guide to Wonderland, or did he just want to get on with life? If Niou gave Yagyuu another chance to run away, would he take it? If he gave Yagyuu another chance to be Niou, would he take it? If Yagyuu fucked him on this bed, Niou would let Yagyuu use the tie on him and watch him lose control, go wild. He liked it when Yagyuu used force, it never happened often enough. If he was Yagyuu and he was fucking Niou on this bed, he would make sure it felt so good Niou would scream and beg for more, and they'd do it again when Niou tries to get a shower afterwards. He'd fuck him against the bathroom tiles. And then again on the bed. Until Niou passes out from the exertion, they'd keep doing it, fuck like a pair of rabbits. Or white hedgehogs. Niou wouldn't be able to stand up afterwards but he wouldn't care, he'd spread his legs and tell Yagyuu to fuck him some more –

The fist on his jaw knocked the rest of Niou's thoughts away. The inside of his mouth scraped against his teeth and he tasted blood right away. He would've smirked and enjoyed the fact that Yagyuu had lost control, except it was him being beaten up and not Rebecca and the answer to who meant more to Yagyuu was right there in the form of raw, coppery blood on Niou's tongue.

He was naked and Yagyuu had him pinned to the bed, and yet the only thing he could do was push the man off. Yagyuu's glasses landed beside his feet and Niou picked them up, put them on his face and saw the world from Yagyuu's eyes.

"And I was going to ask if you want to join us, Niou-kun." Yes, play the bad guy. What else could he do? Explain that what Yagyuu had said in the morning about going home nearly killed him and he did this because there was nothing else he could do?

Fallen to the floor, Yagyuu threw himself forward and Niou stepped back before the hands reached his feet. He felt himself cooling down, both physically and mentally. He didn't want to be touched in any way.

"NIOU! YOU FUCK ANYTHING THAT STANDS ON TWO LEGS DON'T YOU!"

If Niou didn't know better he could tell himself Yagyuu was jealous. He had finally pushed Yagyuu far enough, but the reward he got wasn't what he had come back for. It probably sounded ridiculous but he didn't do it to hurt anyone, not even the frightened woman he had tied to the bed.

Rebecca didn't deserve Yagyuu. But what could he say? Rebecca didn't deserve Yagyuu, Yukimura didn't deserve Yanagi, Sanada didn't deserve Yukimura, no one deserved Niou and Niou deserved no one.

He got dressed and left the building when Yagyuu told him to get out. Once December greeted him with its freezing winds, his head cleared and he knew he had just done the most stupid thing in his life. But what was done, was done, and he was left once again with nothing, just like it was seven years ago.

He pulled his jacket together better and began to walk.

 

Niou ignored the curious stares he received. Some people just found his hair really worth staring at. Oh well, he could just get it all hacked off again.

He didn't remember his lip was still bleeding and he was swallowing his own blood until somebody walked up to him and offered help. He laughed it off but accepted some tissues before moving again, not knowing where he was heading. And damn, now that he noticed it, his cheek was starting to sting. Yagyuu threw a good punch there. It didn't strike - oh the pun, Niou smirked and winced in pain again - as anything really surprising, but it was good to see how much Yagyuu really had in him.

Yagyuu, Yagyuu, Yagyuu.

Well, wasn't it fun? He had sucked Yagyuu off and Yagyuu helped him jack off and they slept together. They talked. They even fought. It was already so much more than Niou thought he would get.

Wandering into a 24-hour store, he bought a few bottles of _Lucozade Sport_ and some packaged bread with the lasts of his money. Then standing at the automatic door, he looked out at the streets.

So, where the fuck should he go now?

Yukimura's? No, not tonight. It may give the man a good distraction from what he had been through last night, but knowing Yukimura, he would guilt trip and worry himself to death if he saw him like this.

Go home? No, and definitely not looking like this. And he wasn't even sure if his siblings were still living there anyway.

With a shrug, Niou turned towards the quieter side of the street to look for a phonebox to sleep in. This was what he hated about his life. Take away the friend, the would-be lover and if he was really stretching it, the family, and he had no place to belong.

Sometimes he really wondered why Yagyuu wanted to be him.

 

He never quite worked out if Yagyuu wanted him or not. Sure, there were moments when he felt that tension, and when he thought the hard pressed line of Yagyuu's lips had softened minutely whenever Yagyuu looked at him. But, in the years they had known each other, Yagyuu had never made a move on him.

Niou knew why: no one would fall in love with himself. At least not with the side of himself he had rejected, which was what Niou essentially was. The monster, the wrong half, the side of Yagyuu Hiroshi that didn't pass the quality assurance but Yagyuu wanted to keep nonetheless, hidden away in the form of Niou Masaharu. And Niou let him. He let Yagyuu shape him, mould him into the wrong one; he perfected the smirk Yagyuu couldn't let dance across his own lips; he gave Yagyuu the escape he wanted, whenever he wanted it.

He let it happen for the same reason he imagined that unyielding facade actually weakened when Yagyuu looked at him behind the safety of his glasses. Feelings and emotions always play with the mind.

No, Niou wouldn't say he became the way he was only because of Yagyuu. He was directionless and rebellious since very young and Yagyuu chose him because of that. And he had chosen Yagyuu because...

Niou sat on the ground, leaned back against the glass wall of the phonebox, carefully avoiding hitting his head against the payphone, and hooked the door shut with one foot.

Yagyuu was the first, and the only person who had ever cared to find him on his thirteenth birthday, and the only person who had shown up year after year ever since.

It was cramped and the glass was cold, and all Niou wished for was the same thing he had ever wanted: someone to cradle him as he slept.

 

Niou woke the next morning after being prodded in the arm by a worried cleaner. Not that pub fights were anywhere as common in Japan as they were in western countries, but Niou knew he probably did look like a drunk, with a swollen cheek and a plastic bag filled with bottles beside him. Waving the man off he stood, his long limbs stiff after being stuck in a box for one night, and pulled out the last coin he had to make a call to Yukimura. Hopefully by tonight his cheek would be better and he could go find the man and borrow his floor to sleep on instead.

Yukimura's phone was turned off. He was probably having lectures or in the library. Sighing as the coin dropped out, he pocketed it, picked up his drinks and finally left the phonebox to let it be cleaned by the slightly frightened cleaner.

He was going to need lodging, clothes, and money. Niou dipped his head and snickered at himself when he realised it sounded like he was a fugitive or something. But he knew this wasn't funny at all. Even if he wasn't going to stay in Japan for good, what Yagyuu had said was still true - he needed a job and a place to sleep, if only to earn himself the money to leave the country again.

It didn't take long for him to find out trying to get a temp job in this city was a joke. Everything needed a reference and his appearance wasn't doing him any favour. By early afternoon Niou knew things were as fucked up for him as they could get. Still, with his shoulders pulled back and head held high, since nothing could hide his blue-coloured chin anyway, he stepped out of the bookstore and walked into the flowershop next door. Romantic as it may first seem, the job of a florist is one that requires strength as well as care, and Niou was sure he'd do well in the strength department.

"Welcome!" A youth called out with fake enthusiasm as the bells above the door jingled, announcing Niou's entrance. There was only one person in the shop, and the youth was sitting behind the counter at a corner, face obscured from view by a games magazine. "Have a look around and let me know if you need any help." The sentence was mechanical, as was the tone, but the voice was oddly familiar. Curious, Niou walked towards the youth.

"I want to ask if you need one more pair of hands. I'm looking for a job."

The youth finally lowered the magazine in his hands, as if annoyed that his service was actually required. "The boss isn't in - "

Two pairs of eyes stared at each other for a full minute. Niou smirked despite the pain in his swollen chin. He was looking at none other than Rikkai's favourite brat and ace, Kirihara Akaya.

 

They waited until the owner, an old woman, of the shop returned, then Kirihara asked if he could have half day off and get it taken out of his wages, to which the old woman shrugged. The two left the shop, and within twenty minutes they had arrived at Kirihara's home. Niou waited outside the kitchen when Kirihara poked his head around and told his mother he was home and she should make more lunch because a friend had dropped by.

Kirihara explained he had two jobs, the flowershop and bug-testing for a games software company, which he could do from home, as he tossed a tube of cream towards Niou.

"Must've been one hell of a right-hook, that." Kirihara said, sitting on the bed and leaning back on his arms.

If only Kirihara knew it was Yagyuu, the one who never lost his temper, who threw that right-hook. Niou chuckled and looked for a mirror so that he could look where he was putting the cream on. He blinked at his own reflection; he hadn't looked at himself since last night and his face was a lot worse than he imagined.

"That's the best cream for bruises and stuff. Two days and you'll look good as new, Niou-senpai."

"Tried and tested?" Niou snorted to cover the wince as he applied the cream.

"I used it a lot in high school."

It didn't take Niou any time to understand the meaning.

"It's really weird. I haven't seen anyone, even Yukimura-buchou, for months, then the night before last I bumped into Sanada-fukubuchou, saw Yukimura-buchou and now Niou-senpai you appear out of thin air." Kirihara laughed, although it was a bit forced and Niou thought he knew why: Kirihara didn't know why Yukimura reacted the way he did when he saw him in Sanada's home.

Niou eyed Kirihara in the mirror and said nothing. His face done, he pulled up his sweater to apply the cream on his abdomen.

"So where have you been, Niou-senpai?"

"You can stop calling me senpai."

"Nah, I'm used to it." Kirihara waved a dismissive hand. "So." He looked at Niou expectantly.

Niou didn't bother answering, his eyes focused on the purple patch on his belly. After a few seconds of silence Kirihara took the hint. A moment later Kirihara's mother announced that lunch was ready, and the youth took it up to the room to eat, saying that his mother would rather not be disturbed because her favourite TV show was on.

"How's Sanada?"

"Old and grumpy." Kirihara pulled a face to imitate his former vice captain. "Just the same."

Niou eyed the youth through the light curtain of steam coming from their lunch. "I've heard about what had happened after the uni exams."

"That?" This time Kirihara laughed for real. "That was so long ago. I can't even find the scar now, it's somewhere around here." He drew a circle with a finger just above his hair, near his right temple. Niou didn't stop eating to reply and Kirihara continued. "I don't know what you'd heard from whom, but it was an accident."

"He accidentally picked up a chair and knocked you out cold with it?"

"He didn't mean it. Lots of things that aren't meant to happen still happen. In the end, everybody's just trying to do what they think is right."

It came to Niou that Kirihara was defending Sanada.

Sanada wasn't mean or evil, he did what he did because he cared and didn't know how else to express it. Niou understood that feeling too well. Suddenly it wasn't his face that hurt. He felt his guts twisting and he forgot the pain in his cheek. His whole body, his mind felt painfully numb, but on the outside he let nothing slip.

"That was fucking philosophical." He said with a faint scowl before wolfing down the lasts of the lunch. He hadn't had a proper home-cooked meal for God knows how long.

"Maybe."

"Oh fucking Jesus, our Aka-chan's all grown up."

Kirihara raised his hand as if he was going to stab Niou with his chopsticks. Niou scooted himself away and leaned back into a wardrobe.

"You know, the other night..." Kirihara lowered his arm, his face a look of confusion, "Gah, never mind."

Niou pretended not to have heard anything. He watched Kirihara gather the dishes to bring them back down to the kitchen, and realised, despite his joke, Kirihara really had grown. The soft curls of his hair meant he would always look like a child in the face, but the rest of him was completely a man. So much time had passed but he had forgotten about it completely since Yukimura and Yagyuu had hardly changed at all.

"So, two jobs?" Niou asked when Kirihara came back. Kirihara snickered.

"Put them together and I'm still not earning what Yagyuu-senpai's probably making." He scratched the back of his neck. "But I need the money."

"For? A car?"

For a while Kirihara looked down at his hands and didn't answer, and Niou thought it might be some kind of financial problem in the family, but later a faint blush crept over the youth's cheeks. Niou had to do his best not to burst out laughing; the look on Kirihara's face was purely comical.

But then Kirihara gave his explanation and Niou realised it wasn't funny at all. "My girlfriend's pregnant." He said, with no shame in his voice. "I'm going to marry her anyway, it's just sooner than I'd planned." Kirihara scratched his neck again.

"You plan these things?" Was this the same Kirihara Niou knew from Rikkai?

"Don't you?" Kirihara looked at Niou, incredulous, but suddenly laughed as if he had just realised who he was speaking to. "Well I suppose some dudes do. Like me. And Yagyuu-senpai. When you have a woman you want, everything changes."

Niou buried his face in his hands and laughed. His eyes were wet.

"Oi, it's not that funny!"

Niou waved a hand whilst he reigned back his emotions. Shit, one mention of Yagyuu and he was bordering hysterical.

"Hey don't laugh. She's my life. And the baby inside her."

Kirihara was obviously offended. Niou took a few deep breaths before looking up again. "It's not that... was just picturing you saying those marriage vows." He snickered.

Kirihara rolled his eyes. It was as if he was the elder of the two.

"How about you, senpai?"

Niou gave a bored look. "Just like the rest of me." He shrugged when Kirihara cocked his head, not understanding. "Fucked up."

Probably by his own hands. Definitely by his own hands. He had wanted to make Yagyuu choose again but for reasons he could no longer list, comprehend or justify, he had gone to do everything that made sure Yagyuu would hate him forever. Quite amazing really, how he had managed to fuck everything up so spectacularly, to the point of no return, in the space of three nights.

"Well I fuck up all the time. I just fix it and do better next time."

"Don't you teach me what to do, Kirihara."

"Che. You're still the same."

"What's new?" Niou snorted humourlessly, wrapped an arm around a bent knee and rested his chin on it.

"The thing is," Kirihara paused and checked himself, as if not sure if he should say the rest of it. "There are no other options. I can't imagine life without her."

Niou knew he probably should just laugh, Kirihara would expect him to, but all he could do was stare blankly until half a minute later, he closed his eyes and snorted again. "This romance crap makes me sick."

"Heh." The youth cracked a smile as if he knew better, but he said nothing more.

His body suggested he should rest a bit more, but Niou ignored it and stood. "Thanks for the lunch." He better get going. The chance of him getting a job looking like this was miniscule, but he just had to try. Even if Yukimura could lend him some floor space he wasn't going to let himself become a parasite and leech on his friend's kindness.

Kirihara stood as well. If Niou was looking for a job, he said, he could go check with the boss at the flowershop and tell him later, since Christmas orders were starting to come in the shop may do well with another pair of hands. If Niou would come back in two days, when his face wouldn't look like he had got caught up in a fight, Kirihara could tell him then.

Niou nodded and left.

 

He probably should give Yukimura a call, since classes must have ended by now, seeing that the sky was pitch black. But Niou realised he didn't know what to say to his friend. Yukimura had really wanted it to work between Niou and Yagyuu, and although he knew that the intention wasn't entirely only for their good, that Yukimura wanted to see a happy ending just so that he could believe in it, Niou didn't want Yukimura to be hurt. With all that the man was going through already, he didn't want to dump this on him as well or watch the man guilt trip himself for asking Niou to come back. Yukimura had always been too kind a person. But everything that had, or had not, happened between Niou and Yagyuu was not Yukimura's fault. Niou knew he should deal with this alone.

Yagyuu.

Niou wondered if Yagyuu was handling all of this well. Likely. At least Yagyuu would have the mind to listen to Rebecca's explanation because it was obvious that he loved her, and he would still marry her. Niou understood the way Yagyuu's mind worked: it wasn't as if Yagyuu hadn't done something out of line before. Niou had seduced them both, it was something he and his fiancee would learn from. It would only make their love stronger. Whether or not she deserved him was another matter, but Niou had been through that already.

He snorted at himself as he walked up the footbridge, stopping at the same spot where he and Yagyuu had met three nights ago. He really was one sentimental bastard. Shivering in the cold, he opened the bread he had bought the night before and washed it down his throat with _Lucozade Sport_. Really stupid of him to come back without a plan for retreat. Not that he had any place to go back to. He was trying to get back to the only place he –

Shit. He wasn't going to let any of this get to him.

What Yagyuu had for him, had ended years ago, but what he had for Yagyuu...

He couldn't laugh when Kirihara said he couldn't imagine life without his girlfriend. He understood how it felt.

Niou leaned heavily on the handrail and looked down at the traffic below.

This had got to end, somehow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter, only one side to the story this time.

The front door shut heavily behind him, the sound echoing through the otherwise silent apartment. Yagyuu stared at the home before him, and suddenly it was as if he could see a faint outline of someone crossing the hall with a careless stroll, with a bottle dangling from the tips of his fingers.

He breathed out, looked away and finally moved to the last item he had to throw out: Niou's backpack. The one simple bag that held everything that was Niou's life for the past seven years. The only place where that Rikkai school tie could have come from.

Yagyuu never took Niou to be a sentimental person, but perhaps he had been wrong. But this wouldn't be the first time in his life he had been wrong about Niou, if what Yukimura had said earlier was true. But how could that be? He knew Niou. He knew the way he spoke, the way he made sure his eyes were hidden under his hair, the way he cracked his knuckles before doing anything seriously. He knew Niou just as well as he knew himself, otherwise he couldn't have fooled anyone when they swapped lives in the past.

He knew everything about Niou.

He was Niou.

But Niou, be him the real thing or the doppelganger, never understood how Niou felt. Nor had he ever questioned it.

Yagyuu dragged the backpack with him to the sofa and opened it, not allowing himself to think about what he was doing. He simply wanted the truth.

The fastenings gave way much easier than the zipper, which was half stuck and possibly had been that way for a long time. Gently Yagyuu eased it open as his mind drifted back to the way Niou had unzipped his pants three nights ago, the way Niou's mouth clamped down on his own, sharing one breath between them until suffocation became pleasure and –

The zipper finally gave way.

He should stop. He had no rights to look into Niou's things.

But why not? He was Niou. Everything that belonged to Niou, belonged to him because Niou belonged to –

Yagyuu pulled out the clothes, towel, and everything that was not of interest, until a small, black metal box was all that was left. It took some effort to open the box. The first thing that greeted Yagyuu's eyes was a photograph. A picture of him and Niou during a tennis game, both of them wearing Niou's hairstyle.

That was the first, and the last time they had revealed this trick to anyone. It wasn't planned - Niou at some point just chose to reveal that they had swapped identities and Yagyuu was sure it was not to stun and confuse their opponents. But if it was a message to say that he was tired of the switching game, well it couldn't have been that. They continued to do it after that match, on and off the courts, in and outside their homes, their lives.

The argument after that match had been cold and silent – Yagyuu disliked being surprised and Niou's decision to do what he did was more than a surprise. Niou shouldn't have done that. On or off the courts, despite what people might have thought, Yagyuu was the one who controlled the game. Niou didn't always do what he was told, but he would never go and do the opposite.

Some time ago, soon after Yagyuu had moved into this apartment, there had been a fire alarm and he spent much longer than he should searching for this picture before leaving the building. Afterwards he left it in the drawer with his spare keys and over time, it faded out of his mind the same way Niou had. He had forgotten.

Evidence of their time together on Niou's birthday was always destroyed. The picture was the only proof that they had shared their lives.

Why Niou had done that, Yagyuu still couldn't tell, but sometimes Niou did allow impulse to take over and did whatever struck his interest that moment. It was a freedom Yagyuu couldn't afford unless when he wasn't himself. His own life had been a pretty-looking cage called sanity that Niou had wanted to free him from.

Then, with a force that knocked his breath away and splintered his vision, it dawned on him.

Niou never got anything out of the switch.

He only did it for him.

The only thing he had ever given Niou were those brief moments of comfort on Niou's birthday every year, after which they would never talk about as if it never happened.

_"He came to find me on the night of his birthday telling me he was leaving..."_

The question that answered all other questions was "when". Niou left on the night of his eighteenth birthday. For the first time since they had known each other, Yagyuu didn't go to find him on that day. He was at home, studying for the university entrance exams, the very thing that would bind him forever to the life he had wanted to get out of.

Niou had called him that night, asking where he was. Yagyuu said he was studying at home and that had been the end of the conversation. It wasn't until Yagyuu got ready for bed that he realised he had forgotten about Niou's eighteenth birthday.

He _forgot_.

He had tried to call Niou the next morning, but no one answered. With the exam pressure mounting, the whole thing was eventually put to the back of Yagyuu's mind. Forgotten again. He never worried because Niou would always be there, smirking, his shirt untucked, his tie loose, his hair the stylish chaos it always was.

Now that Yagyuu looked at it again, it wasn't as innocent a mistake as it seemed. He had left it until the next day before trying to call Niou again. It was the only time in the year when he would offer Niou any form of comfort, and he had forgotten about it because he was working for the very thing that he didn't want, the reason why he sought Niou as his escape in the first place. He had made a decision that his future would not include Niou anymore.

Niou had once said that he would be Yagyuu's white hedgehog, if Yagyuu would find him on his birthday.

Niou bleached his hair back to white the night after he came back, which he spent half drunk in Yagyuu's arms.

Niou probably never said anything about how he felt, but his actions had screamed louder than anything.

Yagyuu had been the one to turn his back, cut all strings loose and push the other out of his life. Niou never wanted to go.

Yagyuu had left him no choice.

 

There had ever only been two people that really mattered to Niou: Yagyuu, and Niou. Not to say that Yukimura or others like Kirihara and Marui meant nothing to him, but it was like drawing an organisation chart and "Yagyuu" and "Niou" were always, always at the top level.

Sometimes he liked to look at it this way, that he wasn't Niou, or even Yagyuu, just someone who knew everything there was to know about them. That way he would be fairer to Yagyuu and because he knew Niou never really told Yagyuu anything, he knew Niou couldn't blame Yagyuu.

Seven years and three days ago, Niou left his home for the last time, carrying a bag half the size of himself, a bag which held everything he would need to start a new life. Eighteen was just a number, but he was tired of his home and tired of his mock runaways.

He had scraped together enough money for two people to go and start afresh somewhere else. Not abroad, but maybe somewhere far from home like Kyushuu or Hokkaido. Yagyuu would say he was crazy, but he should understand. Niou was doing what both of them wanted, Yagyuu should be able to face that by now. He wasn't expecting Yagyuu to be ready to just leave; maybe the youth wouldn't go with him right away. But he wasn't expecting Yagyuu not to show face at all either because of the fucking exams. So much for being able to read people five, ten steps ahead. He couldn't even guess that was what Yagyuu really wanted.

At the time Niou had felt bitter and used, but in the two weeks he spent in Yukimura's home, he understood it was only a matter of choice: the paths that they had chosen had diverged. It was unexpected but no one was to blame. When it came down to it, everyone do what is best for themselves. Humans are born selfish creatures. Niou included. He never thought about what effects his actions may have on Yagyuu's life. Just because he wanted Yagyuu it didn't give him any right to fuck up Yagyuu's life.

But why not? He was Yagyuu.

There was something wrong about that logic.

And shit, Niou couldn't remember if he had ever felt so screwed in his life. It had been wrong to come back with any hope of returning things to the way they once were and more, but as childish as it may be, Niou still wanted his fairy tale and to be Yagyuu's escape, white hedgehog.

He raked his fingers through his wild, white hair.

Damn, he wanted to keep this hair.

 

"Yagyuu?" Yukimura said down the phone with a trace of hope in his voice that was nearly drowned out by the sudden downpour that started just minutes ago.

Yagyuu paid no attention to the security guard who greeted him and suggested he get an umbrella. A bit of water wasn't going to kill him. "Have you found him?" He asked, clutching the phone and shielding it the best he could as he stepped out of the building.

"No."

"Where are you?"

"I just left home again. I went back in case he was waiting for me there, and asked my neighbours to call me if they see him."

Pausing in his tracks, Yagyuu turned and ran back to the apartment building and asked the guard to do the same. His hair was already dripping and the legs of his pants soaked with murky water. The man eyed Yagyuu, nodded and asked no questions.

Yukimura stayed quiet and just listened.

"Yukimura I – "

"I've checked the school." No explanation was needed; Yukimura understood. "I've checked his old home as well. Do you have any idea where he might be?"

Black leather shoes stepped into yet another puddle, splashing water until even Yagyuu's socks were soaked.

"I don't know. I don't know!"

Why the hell did he tell Niou to leave? He had punched Niou and said Niou would fuck anything that stood on two legs, but wasn't what Niou did the same as what had happened years ago? He didn't mean to tell Yagyuu to make out in the classroom, he didn't want to have sex with Yagyuu's fiancée. Yagyuu was who he wanted from the very start. Dammit, why couldn't he just say so!

"Yagyuu!"

"I said I don't know!"

"Stop panicking! This is Niou we're talking about. He wouldn't do anything stupid."

Perhaps it was the cold, or the way Yukimura was trying to sound convincing but failing badly. Yagyuu slowly went down on one knee in the middle of the street and buried his face in his hand. Around him people rushed by, hidden underneath their umbrellas, newspapers or whatever they had on hand.

"He would. I know, he's me. He would."

"...I haven't seen anything on the news." The "yet" was unsaid but so loud in their minds it hurt. "He must still be somewhere in the city. Go get your car, it'll be easier to get around."

Yagyuu took off his glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. He couldn't see anything with water running down the lenses anyway. He screwed his eyes shut and chuckled sadly as he realised, without his glasses and his hair in a mess, he probably looked very much like Niou right now.

Niou was the wrong side of him. The side that was too cunning, too wild, too emotional, too weak. The side that had been trying too hard for too long already and would do anything to end it all.

"Yagyuu are you listening! Get. Your. Car. I'll meet you outside the coffee house."

 

Niou upended his bottle of _Lucozade Sport_ and watched people rushing about on the pavement below as passing cars splashed water all over them. Really, a little water wasn't going to kill anyone.

His jacket wasn't waterproof and he was soaked to the bone, but he couldn't bring himself to move from his spot. He had always thought all the standing in the rain shit was childish and attention-seeking, but now that he was doing it, since the weather had changed so abruptly there was no time or point to run, he found it actually quite soothing. Probably not as soothing as having Yagyuu hold and rock him when he was doped up or half drunk, but still, he liked it anyway, except for the fact that his hair was plastered to his skin instead of fluffed up the way it usually was. Not that he cared, the whole hedgehog thing was pathetic to begin with. He only wished he realised this before he had his head stuck so deep into it. Not to say he regretted it at all.

He wasn't sure what he was thinking about anymore.

His fingers let go of the empty bottle. It bounced on the ground just beside his feet and rolled away. No matter what it claimed on the bottle, he didn't think anything could keep him going any longer.

 

Yukimura took Yagyuu's hand from the gearbox and rubbed it to help get some warmth back into it. And to stop Yagyuu from gunning the car right away. Spotting the glasses in the shirt pocket, he took them out, wiped them clean and helped Yagyuu put them back on.

It wasn't easy to keep himself composed, seeing Yagyuu like this. Up until the conversation earlier, Yukimura had been telling himself Niou wouldn't do anything stupid, but Yagyuu said otherwise and despite all that had happened, Yagyuu was still the man who knew Niou best.

"Yagyuu," He gave the hand a tight squeeze, but kept himself from saying pointless reassurances. "where would you go if you were him?"

The words earned him a blank look, but several moments later Yagyuu pulled his hand free from Yukimura's grasp and floored the accelerator. He was far from sure since it had already been over a day since he told Niou to leave, and he never imagined Niou would let nostalgia get to him, but after finding the picture and other items in the box, including the hand mirror Niou insisted Yagyuu steal for him the first birthday they had spent together, Yagyuu could think of no other place Niou could be at.

Ten minutes later the car queued behind many others, stuck in a jam just a short drive away from Yagyuu's destination. Cones and signs had been set up to help divert the traffic and persuade drivers to seek alternative routes. Those who had to use the highway groaned behind their wheels as half of the lanes had been blocked off.

Yagyuu and Yukimura inched forward in their car for five minutes until they reached the first exit and Yagyuu made an abrupt turn and pulled over. Yukimura grabbed the umbrella on the back seat when he realised they were going to walk. Or run. He gave up trying to shelter Yagyuu after a while.

Their footsteps slowed, eventually coming to a stop behind a crowd held back by police tape. In front of them, under a footbridge, the blue light of an ambulance shone. Beside it was a smaller, standard police vehicle. A policeman was at the tape barrier asking the people to leave, saying that there was nothing to see.

"Was it a suicide?"

"Was he or she pushed? Who is the victim?"

"Did he die on impact?"

The officer shook his head and asked the reporters not to disturb the police operation. All questions would be answered in due time.

"Yagyuu!"

Yagyuu pushed his way through the crowd, practically pulling people away with blind strength until he reached the front and saw a screen put up next to the ambulance. A dark red trail flowed from under the screen. Under the lighting that had been put up, the blood was quickly washed away by the rain until there was nothing but water again.

A little water wouldn't kill anyone.

"Yagyuu?" Yukimura finally made it to stand beside his friend, and sheltered them both with the umbrella. Dark eyes took in the scene. "Oh my..."

They watched an uniformed man walk down from the footbridge, his gloved hand holding a clear plastic bag.

Inside the bag was an empty bottle of _Lucozade Sport_.

"...NIOU!"

He was Niou.

A man nearly dropped his camera and several others turned away and covered their ears. Yukimura let go of his umbrella and wrapped his arm around his suddenly hysterical friend, wincing at the pain of Yagyuu's scream in his ears and the man's elbows in his ribs, trying to break free.

"Yagyuu! Stop it!"

"NIOU! NIOU!"

He was Niou was him.

Yukimura felt tears stinging his eyes and he knew it wasn't from the pain of Yagyuu struggling in his arms. It couldn't be. Niou couldn't have chosen to end it like this. "Yagyuu no! Stop!" He pleaded even though he knew the man wasn't going to listen to him. "Please!"

"NIOU! _NIOU!_ "

He was Niou was him was dead.

"Yagyuu - " Yukimura started again but broke off suddenly just as the glasses fell from Yagyuu's face. "Yagyuu. Yagyuu!" He forced the man in his arms to turn as the crowd around them dispersed a little to avoid the screaming madman.

Just a few feet away from them, a man bent down to pick up the glasses.

Yagyuu stilled and fell silent.

The man slipped the glasses on his face. He didn't know what to do, so he did what he knew best: he smirked.

"Good day, Niou-kun." He said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is called [Strange Relationship] because of a song with the same title that fits the story rather well.
> 
> I felt the need to emphasise Niou knowing that he never really told Yagyuu anything. Yagyuu never knew about his plans to leave home, which Niou probably had in his mind for a long time since he had saved enough money for it. It was a long time thing rather than another impulse that he was acting upon, which made it all the more hurtful when Yagyuu didn't turn up.
> 
> So, I suppose this is a happy ending. Yagyuu very nearly lost his (second? third?) chance. It's strange the way people need to lose something to realise its importance or be able to express how they really feel.
> 
> Um, yeah, that's all!


End file.
